The Bruins closed out 1998 with the best of the holiday spirit:
giving and receiving. Unfortunately, they were giving away goals,
games and points in the standings, and receiving sound beatings
both at home and on the road. The team went 1-4-0, getting only
two points out of the last five games of 98. Worse still, the
injury bug spent the holidays in Boston, piling up the knocks and
dings, leaving the Bruins short by seven players. Fortunately,
the team has had close to a week off heading into a Friday
night clash with Buffalo.
At the start of the Yuletide slide, the Bruins were overpowered
by the Flyers on the night before the night before Christmas.
Byron Dafoe did his best, making 30 saves, but the Flyers
silenced the line of Jason Allison, Dimitri Khristich, and Sergei
Samsonov, and just about everyone else. Sole bright spot was a
goal by Joe Thornton.
The Bruins continued the holiday spirit by skating in to Long
Island the day after Christmas and handing a gift to Islander
goalie Wade Flaherty - a 4-2 win. No other team this year has
been so kind to Wade, and none are likely to get the opportunity,
now that the Isles have obtained Felix Potvin. Given that the
Islanders have gone without a win in the ten games since, you get
some idea of how gracious the Bruins were to their opponents
and their former coach, Mike Milbury. The Bruins also made
Islander holdout Ziggy Palffy happy: Ziggy scored his first goal
since returning to the Isles.
The misery continued two days later when the Bruins were trounced
by the Caps, even without Adam Oates. Washington, who had been
mucho pathetic on their 2-6 road trip, must have passed their
"loser virus" on to the Bruins, because the Caps played like they
had just finished a two-week rest-cure rather than a dismal road
stretch. Peter Bondra set the tone by scoring 24 seconds into
the first period, and it was all downhill from that point. The
Caps threw over 30 shots at Dafoe, and the Bruins only mustered
22 and one goal against Rick Tabaracci, who had never previously
beaten a Bruins team. The Bruins sorely missed sparkplug Robbie
DiMaio, who was out sick with viral meningitis (fortunately a
mild case).
Washington ended up winning the game, with some help from a
disallowed Steve Heinze goal - Steve did a twisty-turn and got a
skate tip into the crease, then received a pass from Anson Carter
and swept the puck in. But the replay official knows best,
regardless of whether Heinze was being pushed and bothered from
behind on the play. The rest of the Bruins played miserably,
with Jason Allison leading the pack with a -4 +/- rating.
Samsonov, of whom Pat Burns said "He played his worst game ever"
against the Islanders, continued to struggle also. Sammy has
been asked to shoot more, rather than circle and
look for the killer pass, but he also needs to get more involved
when the puck is in the Bruins zone.
Finally, the Bruins played a team they could beat, in their
historic first meeting with the Nashville Predators. In Elvis'
home state, the Bruins disregarded the King's advice and were
very cruel to Pred goalie Tomas Vokoun, beating him about the
head and ears for five goals. Landon Wilson and Cameron Mann
were called up from Providence to fill in for the injured
Ken Belanger and Chris Taylor. Mann played with Anson Carter and
Steve Heinze, who ended up with five points for the night, even
though Cam didn't get any. Landon Wilson saw fourth line duty
with Ken Baumgartner and Shawn Bates.
Steve Heinze scored the only goal of the first, and Sergei
Samsonov slid in a wraparound goal in the second period. Then
Carter stole a pass less than a minute later and banked it in off
a Predator and the helpless Vokoun to make it 3-0. Peter Ferraro
then scored to make it 4-0, and that was all the punishment Tomas
could take, so he was relieved by Eric Fichaud. Rob Tallas got
the 5-2 win. The Predators got two late goals, including a short-
hander with just one second left in the game, so in spite of the
two points and breaking the loss string the Bruins were riding,
you got the feeling that their play was still more sloppy than
Pat Burns might want.
Against Dallas on New Year's Eve, the Bruins were hoping to end
1998 on a winning note, but what they ended up with was a Brett
Hull-sized hangover.
The Bs hung in there in the first, faltered in the second, and
went down for the count in the third, ending up on the short side
of a 6-1 rout, with Robbie Tallas absorbing the drubbing. Dallas
scored five straight goals, and during one stretch, scored on
four of five shots.
Down 2-1 in the second period, the Bruins killed a five-on-three
against the league's best power play. Don Sweeney was called for
holding, and then Darren Van Impe was called for tripping in
front of the net. The Bruins defense denied Dallas through both
penalties. But the Bruins couldn't buy a goal, with Carter and
then P.J. Axelsson hitting the post behind Ed Belfour.
With 2:29 left in the second, Brett Hull found Sergei Zubov and
his blast beat Tallas to make it 3-1. From that point on, the
Bruins were just another used party favor.
Back home against the Mighty Ducks, the Bruins returned to the
tough tight defense that Pat Burns favors, and beat the duckies
2-1. With a 0-0 first period, punctuated by several world-class
Kyle McLaren hits, and Ken Belanger doing some duck hunting of
his own, this game was a far cry from the effort against Dallas.
The Bruins put 11 shots on Guy Hebert, who showed why he is still
Anaheim's number one guy. Dafoe played well also - he was tested
by Paul Kariya and Teemu Selanne several times.
In the second period, the constantly-improving Joe Thornton did
what he seems best at - burying the puck from inches away. A Ray
Bourque slapper rebounded to Joe and he showed Hebert no mercy,
scoring his fifth goal of the season. It sure is fun when every
goal is a career high. The Ducks evened it up on a power play at
the end of the second period. Hal Gill was jailed for
cross-checking, and Teemu Selanne scored number eighteen on a
pretty one-timer with 45 seconds left in the middle period. Steve
Heinze, however, put the game away, scoring the game-winner just
over halfway through the third, on a killer pass from Jason
Allison.
Then the Bruins gave slumping Calgary a spanking at the Fleet
with a 5-1 victory. Joe Thornton, centering the checking line
with Rob DiMaio and P.J. Axelsson, scored his sixth goal of the
season on a rebound off Calgary's substitute goalie, Tyrone
Garner. Garner came into the game to replace starter Andre
Trefilov when the Russian netminder pulled a groin muscle doing a
split to save a Ray Bourque shot just 50 seconds into the opening
period. Trefilov, recently obtained by the Flames, was the fourth
goaltender on the team to go out injured. Garner, an emergency
call-up from his junior team, the Oshawa Generals, received a
hearty "Welcome to the NHL" thumping from the Bruins, without a
lot of protection from his defensemen. Heck, his teammates could
barely protect themselves: Jason Wiemer, sitting on the bench,
was struck by a deflected pass in the Adam's apple and had to
leave the game.
Goalie Byron Dafoe had 39 saves, as the Flames poured in lots of
long range shots at the Bruin net, but only Theo Fleury's
breakaway ended up behind Byron. On the offense, Sergei Samsonov
scored two artistic goals to lead the Bruins.
The Bears then began a home-and-home series with the Maple Leafs
with a tight 2-1 victory in Boston. Playing against backup
goalie Glenn Healy, the Bruins held the fast-paced Leaf attack in
check, and scored enough goals to win. Actually, it was a
come-from-behind victory, because Todd Warriner scored for
Toronto with a minute and a half left in the first, deflecting
Mike Johnson's shot past Byron to spoil a pretty decent Bruin's
start.
The Bruins pulled even in the second when Sergei Samsonov took a
pass from Jason Allison, got goalie Glenn Healy to drop, and
skated around him to slip the biscuit into an open net. It was
Sammy's 15th goal of the season.
The Maple Leafs outshot the Bruins 14-5 in the second, but they
were done scoring for the night, thanks to Byron. Then in the
third it was the Bruins' turn, peppering Healy with 15 shots, and
preventing the Leafs from scoring to tie. Dimitri Khristich's
rebound goal with seven minutes left won the game for Boston, and
it looked like the Bruins had Toronto's number, since they beat
the Leafs in their first meeting of the year 4-1. However, this
ceased to be a trend a few days later.
When the Bruins played the other end of this home-and-home
series, it was their very last game in Maple Leaf Gardens against
Toronto. They were missing seven starters to injury. Ray Bourque
was nursing a hip flexor (day-to-day), and the other undressed Bs
included defensemen Dave Ellett and Grant Ledyard as well as
forwards Anson Carter, Tim Taylor, Chris Taylor and Peter
Ferraro.
Brandon Smith, currently second in scoring for defensemen in the
AHL, was called up to help fill out the blue line, but Ray's are
not skates that are easily filled. Unfortunately, without
Bourque, the defense was porous, and the forwards were not much
better.
The Leafs scored goals on their first three shots of the game and
four goals on seven first-period shots. Starting goaltender Byron
Dafoe gave way to Rob Tallas, who fared better but could not turn
a disaster into a win. Shawn Bates scored Boston's sole first
period goal, and Joe Thornton poked the puck past Curtis Joseph
to bring the Bruins within two goals.
Unfortunately, the Maple Leafs Mike Johnson, overlooked when last
year's Calder Trophy went to Samsonov, snuck two more goals past
Rob Tallas, one short-handed, and the other on the power play.
Kyle McLaren ended the scoring with two and a half minutes left
in the game with a power-play goal, his fifth tally of the
season.
More coal in the Christmas stocking - Byron Dafoe and Samsonov
were not selected for the World All-Star team. Dafoe was declared
eligible for the World team because he was born in England, even
though he grew up in Canada. Byron had a tough couple of weeks
before the selections were made, and was especially hurt by four
goals in less than a period against Toronto, which dropped his
save percentage significantly. He dropped from near the top of
the goalie ratings into the pack with a 2.10 GAA, and so
Arturs Irbe, whose career resurgence is keeping the Carolina
Hurricanes a contender, snapped up the third spot behind the
stellar Dominik Hasek and the deserving Nikolai Khabibulin.
The real injustice is that Buffalo coach Lindy Ruff is leaving
Sergei home. Samsonov was fifth in the voting for World
forwards, but Pavel Bure isn't playing, so that makes Sergei
fourth. Although the balloting lets the fans pick the starters,
the rest of those votes might as well have gone to Newt Gingrich.
Ten World forwards were picked, but the selections were obviously
based on the points standings rather than fan wishes or
excitement value. Perhaps as it should be. Still, it is most
aggravating that Marco Sturm, Martin Straka, and Mats Sundin, all
of whom were listed on the ballots as centers, were chosen as
wingers. Sturm and Straka had 50,000 fewer All-Star ballot votes
than Samsonov. Among the other non-starting forwards, Sergei
Krivokrasov had 40,000 fewer votes, linemate
Dimitri Khristich had 50,000 less, and Pavol Demitra and Markus
Naslund were nowhere to be seen.
All these guys were worthy choices, Khristich especially, even if
they were selected just to make sure their team wasn't shut out.
Though most of them were outpointing Sergei, it still seems a
shame that his great skating, puck control, and speed will be
missing from the All-Star game.
On the good news front, Ray Bourque is an NHL All-Star starter
for the 12th time, an NHL record, increasing his number of
All-Star appearances to 17. Wayne Gretzky has also appeared in 17
All-Star games, with only Gordie Howe appearing in more (23).
Pretty select company, wouldn't you say?
