Memo to Peter Chiarelli: Give Marc Savard Another Contract!

I hope Peter Chiarelli has been paying very close attention to this Bruins offense since Marc Savard and Milan Lucic have gone down with injuries. With Marc Savard out of the lineup for the past ten games, the Bruins have scored a total of only 20 goals… For all you math majors out there, that’s an average of 2 goals a game, and that is not good. This team needs Savard to return more than ever to rejuvenate the offense after the Bruins were blanked for the third time in their last six games. Tomas Vokoun and the Florida Panthers blanked the Bruins in a 1-0 shootout loss last night at the TD Garden. I really hope that Chiarelli has a plan to get Savard a contract extension before July 1st comes and he hits the NHL free agent market, because without Savard, this offense is lost!

Earlier in the day, I both read and heard that on Wednesday Head Coach Claude Julien had called out David Krejci in practice about doing more offensively, which didn’t sit well with Krejci. I had heard Cam Neely on the radio earlier in the day and he was was on Krejci’s side because he missed training camp due to his hip surgery recovery, and right when he was starting to hit his stride, he was slammed with the H1N1 flu. I wish Julien would call out several other Bruins who also aren’t producing such as Marco Sturm, Blake Wheeler, Michael Ryder, and Dennis Wideman. The points may not be there yet for Krejci, but I think he has played very well with all things considered.

During the warmup, I received some exciting news via a text message that I would be sitting 4 rows from the ice at the face-off circle where the Bruins shoot twice. My buddy Mike, who also has season tickets, didn’t have someone to go with and said that the seat next to him had my name all over it. I’ve sat in the loge numerous times, but rarely do I sit that close for an entire game. You really gain a great appreciation for how fast the game really is when you are at ice level. It’s really cool to see how intense the players are when they are on the ice, which is something you don’t see in row 15 of section 325.

The Bruins honored the United States Military last night and defenseman Mark Stuart donated $5,000 for tickets for soldiers. Throughout the course of the night, there were nice video tributes to men and women who have served our country. The Bruins also did a nice video where each member of the team thanked them in their own way. The Bruins and Panthers dueled their way through a scoreless first period, but it very easily could have been a 1-0 Florida lead; Tim Thomas made a great pad save to rob Nathan Horton who was set up nicely by Stephen Weiss. Thomas slid across the crease to rob Horton point blank. The crucial save came on a two man advantage.

The Bruins played one of the most dominant periods I had ever seen them play when they outshot the Panthers 19-1 in the second period; yeah, you read that correctly, 19-1, and yet they had no goals to show for it. Tomas Vokoun made a number of quality saves on Blake Wheeler and Mark Recchi. Vokoun had been coming off a week where he recorded two shutouts in his last three games, so I knew he was in one of those grooves and I didn’t have a very good feeling about the game unfolding. The score obviously remained deadlocked at zero after two periods of play.

The Panthers finally showed some visual signs of life in the third period by carrying the play and getting more scoring chances. The Bruins, who finished the game with 40 shots, weren’t passing very well last night; I felt as though they were passing too much, and it was almost as if they were trying to make the perfect play as opposed to consistently making plays. I see the lack of confidence in this team without both Savard and Lucic. It seems to me that most of the players are hesitant to make a great play because Savard is looked at as the premier playmaker, and without Lucic in the lineup, they really weren’t playing all that physically up until the last few games; I mean, the line of Shawn Thornton, Steve Begin, and Byron Bitz always brings the energy and bangs everyone they see, but guys like Zdeno Chara, Mark Stuart, and Patrice Bergeron haven’t been bringing that physical edge since Lucic has been out of the lineup.

The Bruins eventually went to overtime and then to a shootout. Blake Wheeler started off the shootout by having Vokoun beat as he committed to the opposite side of the net, but Wheeler hit the post. Steven Reinprecht also had Tim Thomas beat, but the puck went off Tim’s head, then bounced off his pads and was kicked a few inches from the goal line, but somehow Timmy managed to knock it away. Even he was shaking his head at the luck with that save. The Bruins followed by sending out Patrice Bergeron, Zdeno Chara, and Michael Ryder, while the Panthers went with Rostislav Olesz and Stephen Weiss before Cory Stillman ended it by beating Thomas to the backhand. It was a really discouraging loss because the Panthers aren’t that good, and Thomas recorded his second consecutive shutout but unfortunately this shutout will go in the L column. It wasn’t an ideal game to be sitting in the 4^th row, but it was still a very cool experience.

I do have a cool story from my section; throughout the game, I noticed this very attractive and well dressed African American girl seated in the front row kept heading to the concessions and coming back with 2 beers. When the game was over, I saw who those beers were for, and it was…current Boston Celtic Glen “Big Baby” Davis! He really isn’t as big in person as what you’d think. He appeared to be three sheets to the wind and was posing for pictures with fans with his hat on crooked and a big black cast on his right hand. I’m not a huge Glen Davis fan and I'm irriated with what he did just a night before the Celtics season started (for those unaware, he was out until 4 in the morning with his buddies, got arrested, and ended up fighting one of his friends, breaking his thumb). I was thinking to myself, I wish Wyc Grousbek, Danny Ainge, and Doc Rivers saw his drunken ass in the front row and having fun at a Bruins game. Regardless, it was still cool.

The Line Combinations were as follows…

• Marco Sturm-Patrice Bergeron-Mark Recchi
• Blake Wheeler-David Krejci-Michael Ryder
• Shawn Thornton-Steve Begin-Byron Bitz
• Daniel Paille-Vladimir Sobotka-Brad Marchand

• Zdeno Chara-Derek Morris
• Dennis Wideman-Matt Hunwick
• Andrew Ference-Mark Stuart

There was no scoring summary or Bruins goal videos to report.

Warmup Music…

• Kanye West - “Stronger”
• Eminem - “Lose Yourself”

I didn’t recognize any other songs.