i was asked in the last thread... basically am i happy with backes?
my honest answer is i wish he gave us more. but on a larger scale ive been in these forums around 20 years now. i was young and full of emotion when i started. i cried when we lost. i screamed and shouted when the refs blew a call. if my hero won a fight or scored a goal i was on cloud 9 all week
i read every post made in those days. it bothered me so much how fans would band wagon jump.
i used to get in debates and id be told ONLY PLAYOFFS MATTER. it drove me crazy. i wanted my team to win every second. id post here we had more 500 seasons than anyone... we had more playoff appearances.
and i was told ONLY WINNING THE CUP IS GOOD ENOUGH.
now its 20 years later and even winning the cup wasnt enough for these fans... but in the meantime i change.
i get old... i get cynicle... so now do i care what happens in a game march 7th? do i remembet what happened march 7 2012? or march 7 2008?
i still cheer my heros when they do well but whether we win or lose a game on march 7 no longer controls my mood
backes was acquired to help us at playoff time. ultimately that is where he must be judged. like lucic... lucic might suck 75% of the time but if lucic was in beast mold for playoffs he was still our hero.
as fans of the bruins... we crap on our team if they finish first overall but lose in playoffs. this is true... this happened.
so if playoffs are the only thing that matters lets wait for playoffs to judge guys who are being paid for playoffs.
vets like krecji, backes, rask, even bergeron and chara are being paid for playoffs
"vets like krecji, backes, rask, even bergeron and chara are being paid for playoffs"
We said that about a lot of players in the last 3 years and longer. I think way back to Lucic.
How have the playoffs been for you the last few years? Good?
flip a coin... one more win in 82 games we are in... tick tock... a bounce of a puck... an injury... a shootout goal.... tick tock flip the coin
reality is we cycled through our 5-6 year run at the top as vegas favorites. we had our 2 trips into the finals...our 4 first round victories
and now our depth is depleted. depth is where teams roll up impressive winning records. depth wins the cup.
i would argue backes is a depth add. once our kids backfill the holes in the lineup, backes is the type of guy you stick as the third member of a line and you feel he can help make it work,
are any of our players crosby or kane where we feel they can win a game by themselves? marchand has certainly been close to thar this year... but most our vets are guys who have to play a defense system to have success.
even when we win our cup, we are overtime game 7 first round. our team never blew away the competition. we worked hard for everything we got. Bergeron, thomas, chara and their team worked hard
and now i can point to several bad bounce of the puck 2 seasons. refs calling penalties... chara playing hurt... julien coaching...
i mean we miss playoffs by a single win and we pretend our team is crap? our guys our proven playoff winners and we want to crap on them for one single loss?
theres no promise of success even if we make playoffs... but in a league with a reverse draft and a hard cap and arbitration its to be expected teams will go up and down.
us, chicago, la were the success this decade... now how is la doing? what does the near future of chicago look like? what other team has a 10 year run you think is better than boston? pittsburgh? anaheim?
sorry... we have been very good. sadly we must be happy with this success
but will we be successful moving forward? its not easy to reload on the fly. maybe our future wont be great. backes was signed for playoffs though and thats where he will be judged.
if we continue to miss playoffs every single player will fall under critism. our fan base demands playoffs and backes is a playoff addition
flip a coin... one more win in 82 games we are in... tick tock... a bounce of a puck... an injury... a shootout goal.... tick tock flip the coin
reality is we cycled through our 5-6 year run at the top as vegas favorites. we had our 2 trips into the finals...our 4 first round victories
and now our depth is depleted. depth is where teams roll up impressive winning records. depth wins the cup.
i would argue backes is a depth add. once our kids backfill the holes in the lineup, backes is the type of guy you stick as the third member of a line and you feel he can help make it work,
are any of our players crosby or kane where we feel they can win a game by themselves? marchand has certainly been close to thar this year... but most our vets are guys who have to play a defense system to have success.
even when we win our cup, we are overtime game 7 first round. our team never blew away the competition. we worked hard for everything we got. Bergeron, thomas, chara and their team worked hard
and now i can point to several bad bounce of the puck 2 seasons. refs calling penalties... chara playing hurt... julien coaching...
i mean we miss playoffs by a single win and we pretend our team is crap? our guys our proven playoff winners and we want to crap on them for one single loss?
theres no promise of success even if we make playoffs... but in a league with a reverse draft and a hard cap and arbitration its to be expected teams will go up and down.
us, chicago, la were the success this decade... now how is la doing? what does the near future of chicago look like? what other team has a 10 year run you think is better than boston? pittsburgh? anaheim?
sorry... we have been very good. sadly we must be happy with this success
but will we be successful moving forward? its not easy to reload on the fly. maybe our future wont be great. backes was signed for playoffs though and thats where he will be judged.
if we continue to miss playoffs every single player will fall under critism. our fan base demands playoffs and backes is a playoff addition
Thank god we spend 6m for 5 years on depth players destined for the 3rd line.
This is a Bergeron argument circa 2009ish.
But you know what? I'll take my chances overspending on a 23-24 year old every day + Sunday. Specially D's, C's and G's. I take issue when it happens in the part of the bell curve where bad things happen to beaten up bodies.
This is a Bergeron argument circa 2009ish.
While I'm grateful for the Cup I can't help but think of all the choked away opportunities. Four game 7 homes losses, the game 6 vs Chicago debacle, the 3-0, 3-0 Philly series. Losing to teams like Carolina, Washington and Montreal who had no business beating us.
I'm not going to be excited about all those round one wins that we were favorites to win by a mile.
Two extremely incomparable situations, it's stupid to even bring it up.
Nope - "Spending too much for a 3rd line center who can't be trusted to hold up physically" was a real popular argument against Bergeron's contract at that time.
Do you really not see a difference between a player not yet 25 and one well past 30? It's a totally different situation. I also think tossing aside Bergy after you draft and develop him and he becomes a fan fav, is pretty tough. And the hit was what, 4.75m? Probably 750k rich at the time? maybe?
Nope - "Spending too much for a 3rd line center who can't be trusted to hold up physically" was a real popular argument against Bergeron's contract at that time.
People are too funny on these boards. Backes hits and is a leader. Hes on pace for what he was on last year. Backes has been playing well with Bergeron and Marchand. Since Julien got canned hes on a pace that would have put him near 70 points.
Lets look at the real problem on here. Krejci has coasted this year and his defensive game has struggled greatly.
Stop looking at what a player wil ldo at age ** and start looking at what they are doing now. Look at Hossa. Still pots in 20 goals a year at age 38.
so the spooner concussion moves him to C? I'll be the first to commend good play if he steps up and leads line 3 to results.