The Boston Bruins find themsleves in a bit of a predicament. My favorite phrases for this are: “I’m up a tree” or “I’m in a pitcher of water here”. Both of those came a from a dear friend’s Gram and while I thought they were charming and funny then, I find them to be completely relatable now. Grandma Neal was prescient and kind.
Anyway, back to the B’s. After winning the first game in the series by dominating and then slowly losing their multi-goal lead, the Bruins have steadily lost their mojo in each game since, now being down 3-1 in this series. Apparently on Saturday, Nick Ritchie showed that he was a dud just like his older brother, Brett, in that bad things happen when they’re on the ice. While we’ve been patiently waiting for Ritchie to have more finish than just brute force, he boarded Yanni Gourde on Saturday and earned himself a five-minute-major allowing Tampa’s Victor Hedman to score on the man-advantage. A few days ago I suggested to some pals of ours that the term for a number of Ritchies be a “Deadweight of Ritchies”.
— Out of Context Boston Bruins™ (@oocbruins) August 29, 2020
He’s not the only player to single out because everyone is playing poorly. Jaro Halak can only stop so many pucks and he definitely requires goal support. The only goal for the B’s came from Jake DeBrusk on the power play. While it’s great that David Pastrnak took 6 shots on goal, he’s being nullified along with the rest of his line. In short: other lines need to perform better. I thought they had finally fixed the secondary scoring issue but it remains a problem, one that will haunt them after falling just short of winning the cup last season.
So, tonight is the night. If the Bruins can’t find their legs, can’t score at even strength and on the power play, and can’t stop the Bolts getting under their skin, then it’s over. Surprisingly, this is not the only series on the line tonight; the Colorado Avalanche is on the verge of being eliminated by the Dallas Stars later in the evening.
As for tonight, we know that Chris Wagner is out. Sean Kuraly might be in. He practiced on Sunday and “is progressing”, whatever that means. We could really use some of that Big Game Sean Kuraly Energy right now.
#NHLBruins updates per coach Bruce Cassidy:
Chris Wagner is unavailable for Game 5.
Sean Kuraly skated today and is progressing. pic.twitter.com/9U3e8jIjOJ
— Boston Bruins (@NHLBruins) August 30, 2020
Game 5 is tonight at 7pm Eastern.
I would have thought that the Fours do the huge amount of business it did during game days would have some money socked away. But business outside of game days was probably a lot quieter. It’s a shame.
Yeah, but there are a LOT of game days.
Like 50 home games each for Bruins & Celtics.
Though I fail to see how any restaurant can survive this pandemic. You’ve gotta shrink your menus to reduce perishable ingredients, you aren’t selling much of your high-margin stuff (drinks). It’s just not safe/legal to serve people – kitchens are normally a bit cramped, tables are too close together, restrooms are ALWAYS too small. They probably dropped from ~40 indoor tables and two packed bars to 8 sidewalk tables with no home games and no customers when it rains.
Lots of places closing. I guess it’s near impossible to ride out the pandemic…. Who knows how long it could last? We have eaten at a restaurant (outdoors) exactly once since March 12th. What will places do when the weather turns cold?
Fucking Google password save doesn’t work on this PC.
Goddammit I’m sick of having to manually enter my stupidly complicated password that I need to go to great lengths to look up.
Haven’t used it myself but I’ve heard good things about Lastpass.com
Really, the password set up will send me to the loony bin one of these days
https://vimeo.com/453164348?fbclid=IwAR0KhQfBqaSrc_Mp11_kEjd-OS7Ot2Gbqizir_jNJarmHHSCJIPg_EThIVw
I got caught in a hot mic about 1:30 in. NBCSNPDQOMG will be suspending me without pay until further notice.
At :30 a young woman demonstrates how to exit a wave…. a wave that truly scares me.
Hahaha! Are you wearing a hockey helmet? (In the video I mean, not right now)
Yes! That’s my signature look!! (How did you know that I wear one at home??)
Again showing us there are better things to do with our time.
Morning all. Oh man, didn’t hear that about the Fours. That’s a gut punch!
An addition to the Ellen is a Dipshit files: Was doing my Sunday chores and noticed the coffee maker clock said 12:00. Thought “huh, clock needs to be reset. Must have bumped the cord or something while cleaning.” Checked the time and turns out the clock was fine. It really was 12:00.
I took a long nap when I finished chores.
Doh!
Even a stopped clock is right twice a day!
Good Morning!!!
We were on the river all day Saturday…. I thought I heard something that sounded like a team underwater, dunno.
I don’t think muscle is the answer. The Bolts are big…. the Bruins aren’t out muscleing them no matter how many Ritchies they call up. It has to be done with speed, finesse, and adherence to the system. It’s too late to change the team. Go with what got you there!!!
Sad to hear that The Fours is closing. Glad I was able to enjoy a couple cold ones there with some of you!!
Nose goes back to the grindstone today… bleh.
Saw a video on FB of you surfing. The camera didn’t stay on long enough to show how you get out of the swell alive – which looked like it might be a challenge!
Sometimes one comes out upsidedown!
Yeah, the Nick Ritchie experiment has reached the end of it’s useful lifespan. He’s just on a totally different page than the rest of the team. I truly don’t know why he’s been on ice these last 3 games. Bjork? Kuhlman? Studnicka? Any of those guys would contribute more.
Is it because he had a couple of good early shifts in game 2?
Morning folks.
Ugh, this team, eh? Saturday’s game clashed with work but I managed to watch from about the halfway point. They played pretty well in the third period and they were a bit unlucky with the goal they allowed late in the 5min PK. Might’ve been a different game if that hadn’t fluttered in but here we are, in a 1-3 hole.
I’d like to see them stage a comeback but could certainly forgive them if in the back of their minds they’re thinking “if we lose tonight we can go home to our families”.
Had a super stressful week at work – which is unusual in my job! We have a new operating system that I had real trouble getting to grips with. I don’t like change but usually am a fast learner, so my struggles were really getting me down. If I seemed a bit spaced out on the Zoom chat that’ll be why! I really needed to immerse myself in a different world, and it helped a lot so thanks! Had a much better day yesterday.
Did I see the Fours has closed down? That’s a damn shame. Glad I made a point of watching a game there when we were in town.
Tech troubles. So many “updates” seem like they are different, but not better. Software companies just not making enough billions of dollars.
Haha – you’re not wrong!
Software companies get too wrapped up in “coulda” that they forget to take care of “shoulda”. We’ve got some software we use at work that is web-hosted. It gets updated about every 3 weeks. And each time they make the user interface just a tiny bit harder to use. And the whole model is sorta dumb – it’s designed to keep coders productive rather than to make products that make sense. On the plus side, one can quickly react to security exploits.
*puts on old-man voice, pulls on suspenders*
It used to be that software was developed by engineers, and products were architected & designed with a more holistic view – now it’s developed by coders, where slapping together a bunch of off-the shelf components as quickly as possible is the norm. No one understands how anything works because so little of it was created locally.
Damn developer kids today don’t know nuthin! Too busy skateboarding on the sidewalk!
*shakes fist at clouds*
Oof, sorry pal. Never a fun thing, especially just coming back from vacation! Hopefully this week is better for ya and glad your crazy American friends can be a distraction!