For the last two years, Pat Burns' Bruins have been consistent.
They finished both seasons with the same won-lost-tied record,
39-30-13 for 91 points. They made the playoffs both years. The
difference in 1998-99 was that they managed to win their first
round playoff series, beating Carolina, instead of losing to
Washington the prior year.
The best part of the season was watching Byron Dafoe turn into a
world class goaltender, and watching Joe Thornton grow into his
body and into an NHL player. Dafoe was the best between the
pipes for the Bruins since Blaine Lacher. Strike that. Bad joke.
Try Andy Moog. Or better than that. Byron was the first Bruins
goalie since the 1930s to register ten shutouts, and that was one
more than the Dominator during the regular season.
Joe Thornton seemed to be ambling along, just a little better
than his rookie year, when Pat Burns had him fill in on the
checking line when Tim Taylor was injured. It was like a light
turned on. Whether it was the coach's confidence, or his
teammates', or his own, Joe started playing better than ever
before, and by the time the season was over, he was solidly the
team's number two center, and was often added to the initial
power play for size and scoring. If Joe can continue to
improve, he will be a force.
His rookie companion from last year, Sergei Samsonov, who won the
rookie of the year, leveled off in the sense that he did not
continue a meteoric ascent to NHL superstardom. But he still
ended up scoring more goals and points than last year, in spite
of other teams' defenses being better prepared to deal with him.
They seemed to wait out his skating moves instead of lunging at
him. Players bided their time, and when Sergei was done with the
flashy dekes, they shouldered him off, or just knocked the puck
away. This increased the pressure from coaches and fans for
Sergei to shoot the puck instead of maneuvering and passing all
the time, and this added to the pressure. But the kid settled
down and kept contributing, and actually played better team
hockey - Burns-speak for defense - than he did the previous year.
What Bruins season would be complete without disruptive talk and
no action from management? This year, Mike O'Connell almost let
the media ignite a feud between himself and Pat Burns with some
off-hand remarks about Samsonov's ice time. The pundits
immediately ran to Burns and tried to get Mike in a pickle, but
Burns only toyed with them, throwing out a quotable that Mike
only had to worry one day a year - on draft day - quite
differently from a coach's situation. But Burns quickly defused
the situation by talking off-line with Mike and then reporting
the rift healed.
Apparently having thus justified their existence, Mike and Harry
Sinden did little more from then on than let the trading deadline
pass with no moves, and then try to pawn a few AHL Bruins off on
Pat Burns as consolation. Pat kept quiet, but there were
rumblings that he was rather disappointed that the brass didn't
try to pick up Wendel Clark, a Burns player through and through.
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Byron Dafoe
by Meredith Martini
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TEAM MVP: There is little question that the Team MVP was Byron
Dafoe. Dafoe led the league in shutouts, dropped his GAA below
2.00, and was a Vezina trophy finalist. Of course, he will likely
lose to Hasek, but at least next year he will not be bypassed for
the All-Star game in favor of Arturs Irbe and Olaf Kolzig. Joe
Thornton and Jason Allison played well, and Ray Bourque was a
stalwart again. Kyle McLaren took another step toward being a
standout defenseman, but Byron was the story. He had a .926 save
percentage, among the elite goalies in the league, and
accounted for 32 of Boston's 39 wins.
SURPRISE: As far as the Bruins' surprise of the year, it
is not a question of a single player, but of an entire
organization. The Bruins farm club in Providence Rhode Island,
after finishing dead last in the AHL in the prior season, set an
AHL record for overall wins in a year (season and playoffs) with
71 wins. Say that again slowly. Seventy-one. Yow! In the
process, they won the AHL regular season championship, and then
blitzed their way through the playoffs to win the Calder Cup as
AHL champions. An incredible turnaround that started with the
hiring of former Bruin farmhand Peter LaViolette as head coach,
and great play by the young Bruins of the future like Cameron
Mann, Landon Wilson, Shawn Bates, and many others. One of the
most beautiful moments of the season came when Peter Ferraro, one
of Harry's retreads who wasn't quite healthy and strong enough to
stay with the Boston squad, was called away from a post game
interview ("Who? Me?") to receive the award for playoff MVP for
his incredible leadership performance during the playoffs.
Ferraro's had nine goals and 21 points in 20 games.
DISAPPOINTMENT: The major disappointment for the season
was the trading deadline. It couldn't be called a surprise,
because no one sober expected the Bruins management to lift a
finger to improve the club, and so only the deranged and
stupefied among us came away disappointed. Of course, those
who were both deranged and stupefied were too busy trying to line
up Tony Amonte hockey cards and Wendel Clark 5x10s to notice
until it was too late.
Some might say that the playoff non-performance of Dimitri
Khristich was the biggest disappointment, but every year on every
playoff team, some player is unable to perform up to
expectations. Maybe it is an injury, or a pressure thing, or just
a gut check. But it happens every year, without fail. This year,
it happened to Dimitri. Last year, it was somebody else.
That is the whole point of what teams try to do at the trading
deadline - find that extra player who will pick up the slack if a
regular has a bad series. Or play a role to take the pressure off
a superstar or regular. Once again, the Bruins brass willfully
failed to make the effort to find this player, this boost, this
insurance policy. In recent memory, the only late season trade
they made was to dump Adam Oates, Bill Ranford, and Rick Tocchet,
in what was a white flag move, rather than a playoff stretch
maneuver. Time and time again, Harry and Mike, and the
concessionaire they work for, forget that of all the teams that
make deadline moves, only one of them gets the Stanley Cup as a
reward. But them's the rules. Or maybe they think too much about
that fact. But they seem to ignore the flip side - few or none of
the teams that do not beef up at the deadline survive until the
final round. This year the team that beat them in the playoffs
went out and made three key deals before the playoffs, and son of
a gun, their top scorer, Miroslav Satan, missed every single game
against the Bruins. Guess who won the series because they had
other players to pick up the slack? Nuff said.
Events have proved Harry Sinden to be right that many teams were
fiscally irresponsible regarding player salaries. It almost
seems that the most destructive thing a team can do is win the
Cup. Look at the Rangers (out of it), the Avs (fire sale), the
Pens (liquidation time), the Red Wings (Scotty Bowman didn't
retire), and now the Stars - how they gonna keep 'em down on the
farm?
On the other hand, they all got those nice hats and tee shirts
right after the final game, and they all got to shake that big
Cup to see what was inside. None of the Bruins got to do that.
OFF-SEASON CHANGES: In the off-season, it all starts and
ends with re-signing Byron Dafoe, a free agent. Harry will have
to pay and pay, though he may be able to appeal to Byron's sense
of team and knowing a good thing when he sees one. After all,
Byron can now that a good part of the reason Patrick Roy
and Felix Potvin will end up in the Hockey Hall Of Fame is that
they played with a Pat Burns team in front of them for a goodly
while. It does wonders for your confidence as well as your GAA.
Next the Bruins need to decide what to do with Dimitri Khristich.
Sinden yelled about Allison not performing in the playoffs, but
he was just as disappointed with Khristich. The Bruins cannot
afford, depth-wise, to just jettison this player, but it will be
hard for him to return after the off-ice abuse he took at the
hands of management. This is a real shame in that the lack of a
Russian speaking player might end up hurting Sergei Samsonov as
well. The likelihood is that Harry will hem and haw about free
agents all summer, or have Mike O'Connell do it for him, but
in the end, the burden will fall on the kids from Providence.
Hopefully, this time they will be ready to provide the scoring
spark the Bruins need.
