Results tagged “claudejulien”

Sports Redux: A Fair Point

It's one point. A shootout loss. One goal. The Bruins will gratefully take it right now. With the offense struggling to even find the goal, let alone put the puck in it, and with swine flu racing towards the team, it's time to think about baby steps.

David Krejci had the H1N1 virus, won't play tonight and is day-to-day. Peter Chiarelli predictably said the team is taking sufficient precautions to prevent the spread of the H1N1 virus. Claude Julien and his club are down with Chiarelli's take. Julien says other teams don't care about the problems facing his team. FYI, Canadiens in Boston tonight.

Superficially, it looked like the old rivalry again. The Sixers have brought back the old logo, the old floor from the Spectrum (more or less) and uniforms that hearken back to the days of Dr. J and Andrew Toney. But the team that Philly put on the floor last night was no match for the early 09-10 Celtics. The '83 Sixers might not have been.

Another even-numbered game on the schedule; another win. It's a more reliable way of telling time than waking up this morning and not remembering if your cell phone/computer/alarm clock made the change for you.

Eleven games, and for better and worse, the Bruins still haven't been able to put together a two-game streak of any kind. They had a chance last night, and played pretty well, but came away short with a 2-1 loss to the Devils. "This is one of those nights throughout the course of a season where you lose a hockey game only because the other team got one extra bounce going their way," said Coach Claude Julien.

Technically, the Patriots aren't playing the Tennessee Titans today. In honor of the 50th season of the old AFL teams, the Titans are dubbing themselves the Houston Oilers today in Foxboro. But whatever they call themselves, they're a good (or so we thought) team that's somehow 0-5, and the Patriots are a good (or so we thought) team that's 3-2 and hasn't really looked like itself. Something's got to give.

Sports Redux: Road To Victory

After starting the year with a 2-3-0 record that, quite possibly, looked worse than the actual record did, the Bruins left Boston looking to play better hockey. Coach Claude Julien actually said it's not that bad. Bostonist will just agree to disagree. One quick trip to Dallas and a complete 3-0 victory later over the Stars, and all is agreeable to Coach Julien and Bostonist. Call us crazy if you wish, but some Bruins hockey was on display in the first two periods. Marc Savard asserted himself with two goals and Patrice Bergeron added the third score. Tim Thomas turned back all 27 Dallas shots for his first shutout of 2009-10.

The "he" in question is Alex Ovechkin, the two-time NHL MVP and star of the Washington Capitals. The "you" in question is Tim Thomas, Dennis Wideman (the quotee), and the entire Bruins organization, which saw Ovechkin score two goals and an assist to spoil Opening Day for the B's, 4-1.

Well, the Red Sox are officially on a roll. They're preparing for the playoffs by being swept twice in a row. And they did it with style last night, serving up another round of meatball sandwiches to give their guests from Toronto an 11-0 win.

Sports Redux: Byrd Not the Word

When does Nick Green start? After Friday's disaster in Chicago, isn't that an appropriate question to ask? Paul Byrd allowed seven runs and 10 hits in just 2.1 innings and probably would have been hit just as hard by his kid's AAU team. Junichi Tazawa survived for 3.2 innings despite allowing five runs on seven hits. Believe it or not, Byrd and Tazawa were worse than it sounds as all 12 of Chicago's runs in the 12-2 loss were compressed into just three innings. Freddy Garcia allowed one run in six innings.

Sure, if you win the Stanley Cup, you get your name engraved on it, you get to take it home for a day to do whatever you want with it, and kids from Yellowknife to Halifax go to bed dreaming of it. But still, when your year is over, you usually have to give it back. Usually to the Red Wings.

Sports Redux: Bruins Put Their Foot Down, Take First Step

Sometimes, it takes a little while to remember how tense playoff hockey can be. When the Canadiens tied the Bruins 2-2 late in the second period last night, it all came back to us. Phil Kessel and David Krejci had staked the B's to a 2-0 lead late in the first.

"It was an emotionless game and if I’m somebody on the outside watching our team right now, I don’t see a lot of character that you could really identify with." - Andrew Ference

Is it possible we've segued right into a new Big Three? Even though none of them are all that big?

35 seconds. That's all that separates a decent team from (a) hanging around against the Bruins, and (b) being another notch in the team's collective hockey stick. For two periods, the Flyers hung around with the Bruins. Which was nice for them.

That two-game losing streak last week? Forget it. The Bruins have found their offensive punch again, and won their second straight on a 5-1 whupping of the Whalercanes yesterday at the Garden. Tim Thomas stopped 29 shots, and the B's chased Carolina goalie early in the second, after Krejci, Yelle and Stuart had gotten past him. Michael Ryder also scored twice before the Canes popped in a meaningless goal early in the third.

Sports Redux: Finally, A Win

Our nightmare is over. One of our floundering local wintertime teams finally broke into the win column last night, as the Bruins refound their offensive mojo and whacked the Ottawa Senators, 6-4 at the Garden last night.

This has been a nice little homestand for the Bruins, hasn't it? Last night, they followed up blowouts of Dallas and Toronto with a spirited, come-from-behind 3-1 win over Buffalo that launched them into a flatfooted tie for the Northeast Division lead.

"We want to be greedy," said Claude Julien. And why not? After successively blanking the Oilers and the Canucks on 1-0 scored, the Bruins were hungry and ready to go for the Western Canadian sweep in Calgary. And when Patrice Bergeron caught Flames goalie Miikka Kiprusoff out of position for the quick 1-0 lead, Coach Julien's green looked like it might be rewarded.

Apparently, you're supposed to let the MCL surgery heal before you reconstruct the ACL. It's starting to sound like Tom Brady's been seeing Dr. Nick Riviera, as grim accusations are starting to fly about what exactly is going on with his knee. The Patriots are a little miffed that Brady got the operations done in California. On Tom's website, he says everything's going swimmingly, but that's as of last week.

If you ever wondered if the Garden is freezing cold when there’s no ice in the rink, we can answer that question for you – it is and we’re still trying to thaw out. Last night we neglected to bring our winter coat when we attended the second annual State of the Bruins, a town hall meeting for the season ticket holders to find out what’s expected this season from the black and gold.

The wheels are coming off the bus. After Monday night's debacle in DC and Tuesday's shutout at the hands of Florida, the Bruins desperately needed a strong showing last night, with Toronto in town and their six-seed hanging by a thread.

It seems that the Bruins' approach to the NHL trade deadline - to hold steady and remain as is - might just pay off. On Tuesday night, against an Ottawa Senators team that the Globe kindly referred to as "thoroughly disinterested" (read: someone's will to play didn't arrive at the TDBN Garden with the rest of the Senators' gear), the Bruins cruised along to a 4-0 win, extending the winning ways that began out on the road. We're liking these results - and we're also digging Coach Claude Julien's decision to start the game with the bash brothers line (Jeremy Reich, Vladimir Sobotka, and Shawn Thornton).

Is it just us, or does it seem like whenever the Bruins have the spotlight to themselves, they lose? When they play the same night as the Celtics, or Patriots, they're fine, but give everyone else the night off, and it feels like we always have to lead with a Bruins loss. Maybe it's just us. But they deserve better.

The Bruins have, objectively, been pretty good this year. They're still in playoff position (it's tenuous, but still true), and have won some pretty exciting games. But for some reason, the sight of the Canadiens turns the B's into frightened little kittens, commiting penalties and hanging their goalies out to dry on power play after power play.

Jeez, can't a guy catch a break and land 16 more votes? Poor Jim Rice. The man listened to the annual chorus of "maybe next year" time and time again while his Red Sox teams tried to bring home a championship; now he has to listen to the same call again, for the 14th time, as he wonders whether he'll ever get voted into the Hall of Fame. Once again the MVP could have been voted in. Once again it didn't happen - and the margin separating him from official baseball immortality was a tiny little margin.

This should be fun. The best team in the American League against the best team in the National League. Two of the greatest pitching matchups we'll see all season. A glimpse of old friend David Wells. It's not that crazy to say the Red Sox and Padres will be eyeing each other with visions of an October rematch dancing in their heads. Daisuke Matsuzaka goes tonight in the first game. So this will be his...

We'll get into the Red Sox victory over Atlanta in just a moment, but Curt Schilling just wrapped up his weekly phone call with WEEI, and Bostonist was struck by the decidedly different tone of voice we heard over the airwaves. Schilling's not sure about what's going on with his arm, and we're not sure about what's going on with our No. 1 starter - which means we're in the midst of an odd Wednesday...

Curt Schilling got a hit! After bunting into a strikeout in the second, Schill hit a bleeder in the fourth that rolled right past second base into center field for a single. Maybe we should focus on that, since Curt's pitching was...well...bad. Two starts after his Flirt with Destiny, Schilling got rocked again, by Atlanta's bats, giving up six runs on ten hits in less than five innings. His fastball doesn't seem to be fast...

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