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Bruins playoff run 2011


YeahBud

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Does anyone else admire Guy Boucher as much as I do? It is quite apparent to see how he as risen through the ranks so quickly and also very impressive. To go from junior one year, to the AHL the next and then have NHL teams bidding for a rookie coach and signing him to a 4 year deal is unheard of. Then he takes a non-playoff team all the way to game 7 of the East final....so far. His methodical and psychological approach seems to really resonate with his players. And not to mention produce an entertaining press conference. Tampa is a fairly exciting team to watch and they never seem to be out of any game.

Not to say that I am unhappy with Jacques Martin, but I often think what could have been had Boucher became the next coach of the Canadiens. Would they have finished higher in the standings this year? What about the next few years? Would I actually enjoy watching the coach's media address? We all know Martin is as dry as a Nun's vagina. I just think that it would have been nice to have some personality behind the bench. And again, I reiterate that I am happy with what Martin has done so far, an East final and a game 7 overtime loss are excellent results considering. I compare it to having a crush on a really beautiful girl who is absolutely perfect for you. However, she is in a relationship with some loser and it's just a matter of time before it ends. In the meantime, you find a really great girl who has a good job and takes care of the house, so you marry her. Then during your marriage, the other girl becomes available and you sit there and always think about what could have been with her. And then a friend will say, if it's meant to be, it's meant to be...

I am also a great admirer of Guy Boucher, but I am glad that he did not start his career in the NHL with the Habs. We have had quite a few rookie coaches over the year (Therrien, Julien, Carbonneau, Tremblay, Vigneault, just to name a few), and the least we can say is that the challenge has been very tough for each of them. Boucher is in a win-win situation is Tampa. He had the nucleus of a good team, but expectations were low. Let him do his mistakes (he is not perfect), learn his trade at the highest level and -- who knows? -- maybe he will get free again in a few years and the Habs will be in a position to give him another chance.

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Does anyone else admire Guy Boucher as much as I do? It is quite apparent to see how he as risen through the ranks so quickly and also very impressive. To go from junior one year, to the AHL the next and then have NHL teams bidding for a rookie coach and signing him to a 4 year deal is unheard of. Then he takes a non-playoff team all the way to game 7 of the East final....so far. His methodical and psychological approach seems to really resonate with his players. And not to mention produce an entertaining press conference. Tampa is a fairly exciting team to watch and they never seem to be out of any game.

Not to say that I am unhappy with Jacques Martin, but I often think what could have been had Boucher became the next coach of the Canadiens. Would they have finished higher in the standings this year? What about the next few years? Would I actually enjoy watching the coach's media address? We all know Martin is as dry as a Nun's vagina. I just think that it would have been nice to have some personality behind the bench. And again, I reiterate that I am happy with what Martin has done so far, an East final and a game 7 overtime loss are excellent results considering. I compare it to having a crush on a really beautiful girl who is absolutely perfect for you. However, she is in a relationship with some loser and it's just a matter of time before it ends. In the meantime, you find a really great girl who has a good job and takes care of the house, so you marry her. Then during your marriage, the other girl becomes available and you sit there and always think about what could have been with her. And then a friend will say, if it's meant to be, it's meant to be...

Coaching is as good as it's players. Scotty Bowman won nothing with the Sabres, he turned them into a responsible defensive team and provided Don Edwards, Bob Sauve and Tom Barrasso with some hardware, but not much else. He won all his Cups with the Habs, Wings and Penguins. All star studded rosters.

Can coaches make a difference? Of course they can, but it is nowhere near what fans would like to believe. Fans want a saviour and a scapegoat.

The coach is the perfect remedy for this, as are goaltenders. It is why Therrien can be an idiot and then almost win a Stanley Cup. It is why Bowman can win 12 straight series with the Canadiens in 4 seasons and then 4 series over the next 7 seasons. It is why Michael Leighton can be a career AHL goaltender and then get to Game 6 of the Stanley Cup Final.

Should we imply that Randy Cunnyworth is a better coach than Boucher because he took the Bulldogs to Game 7 of the Conference FInals with considerably less NHL talent? Or did the Bulldogs do better because they had more veteran AHL talent?

Boucher cherry picked the best situation. Would I be replying to this if he had chosen the Blue Jackets instead of the Lightning and St. Louis, Lecavalier, Stamkos, Hedman etc? The answer is no.

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Coaching is as good as it's players. Scotty Bowman won nothing with the Sabres, he turned them into a responsible defensive team and provided Don Edwards, Bob Sauve and Tom Barrasso with some hardware, but not much else. He won all his Cups with the Habs, Wings and Penguins. All star studded rosters.

Can coaches make a difference? Of course they can, but it is nowhere near what fans would like to believe. Fans want a saviour and a scapegoat.

The coach is the perfect remedy for this, as are goaltenders. It is why Therrien can be an idiot and then almost win a Stanley Cup. It is why Bowman can win 12 straight series with the Canadiens in 4 seasons and then 4 series over the next 7 seasons. It is why Michael Leighton can be a career AHL goaltender and then get to Game 6 of the Stanley Cup Final.

Should we imply that Randy Cunnyworth is a better coach than Boucher because he took the Bulldogs to Game 7 of the Conference FInals with considerably less NHL talent? Or did the Bulldogs do better because they had more veteran AHL talent?

Boucher cherry picked the best situation. Would I be replying to this if he had chosen the Blue Jackets instead of the Lightning and St. Louis, Lecavalier, Stamkos, Hedman etc? The answer is no.

Well, I do think there are better and worse coaches. I've always felt that Therrien was a clown with us and a clown with Pittsburgh, just disguised by his great roster. Boudreau is another guy who is somewhat suspect, because his teams have no track record of playing with structure and seem prone to panic whenever they're faced with a challenge. Pierre Pagé misread his bench in Game 6 against the Habs in 1993 and watched his team collapse at least partly in consequence. Jean Perron has been derided as a joke despite the 1986 Cup, with players on that team saying the real coaches were Gainey and Robinson, and apart from a one-season abortion in Quebec he never worked the NHL again. Carbo had massive problems getting his nucleus to buy whatever the hell he was selling, and the fact that JM's first task was to instil a culture of hard work and discipline suggests that Carbo really didn't get the job done (not to say it was all his fault, but surely he bears some responsibility; and he too has yet to work again). Conversely, while Bowman did not win in Buffalo his arrival DID coincide with improvement to the team. Alain Vigneault squeezed excellent results from a mediocre Habs team in the 90s, was then inexplicably ignored by NHL GMs until Vancouver wisely scooped him up, and now he is getting excellent results with a strong Canucks team. What Bylsma accomplished with a decimated Pens squad is surely remarkable. JM, meanwhile, has provided a system in which his team always has a chance to do major playoff damage. And so on.

A lot of times it's a question less of coaching excellence per se than of right coach for the right team. For instance, Pat Burns seems to have lost the room by 1992. When Demers came in, he seemed to mark a breath of fresh air from Burns's more hard-assed approach and was exactly what the team needed. Then again, the team has also acquired a new first line thanks to brilliant GMing by Serge Savard. Still, players from the 1993 team have praised Demers's contribution, his successful use of positive psychology and motivational techniques. Whether a rookie Boucher would have been the right man for our veteran-laden core is, I think, a good question. Maybe guys like Gio and Gill and Hammer are better-suited to a seasoned veteran like Martin, who has been through as many wars as they have.

None of this is to deny that the main onus falls on the players, not the coach. I just want to resist the idea that coaches are interchangeable parts.

I agree that Boucher's rise has been meteoric and impressive, but JC and Wamsley are right that he landed in the perfect situation. Coaching in Tampa is NOT equivalent to Montreal (the toughest gig in hockey). We also should not forget that our existing coach surely maxed out the potential of his decimated roster this season, and that lots of coaches look great for a year or two before their act wears thin. To invert illWill's metaphor, there's something to be said with sticking to a relationship than you know works, instead of running off with the sexy new babe. Full props to Boucher but I'm not sure we need to be ripping our hair out that we don't have him at this juncture.

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Well, I do think there are better and worse coaches. I've always felt that Therrien was a clown with us and a clown with Pittsburgh, just disguised by his great roster. Boudreau is another guy who is somewhat suspect, because his teams have no track record of playing with structure and seem prone to panic whenever they're faced with a challenge. Pierre Pagé misread his bench in Game 6 against the Habs in 1993 and watched his team collapse at least partly in consequence. Jean Perron has been derided as a joke despite the 1986 Cup, with players on that team saying the real coaches were Gainey and Robinson, and apart from a one-season abortion in Quebec he never worked the NHL again. Carbo had massive problems getting his nucleus to buy whatever the hell he was selling, and the fact that JM's first task was to instil a culture of hard work and discipline suggests that Carbo really didn't get the job done (not to say it was all his fault, but surely he bears some responsibility; and he too has yet to work again). Conversely, while Bowman did not win in Buffalo his arrival DID coincide with improvement to the team. Alain Vigneault squeezed excellent results from a mediocre Habs team in the 90s, was then inexplicably ignored by NHL GMs until Vancouver wisely scooped him up, and now he is getting excellent results with a strong Canucks team. What Bylsma accomplished with a decimated Pens squad is surely remarkable. JM, meanwhile, has provided a system in which his team always has a chance to do major playoff damage. And so on.

A lot of times it's a question less of coaching excellence per se than of right coach for the right team. For instance, Pat Burns seems to have lost the room by 1992. When Demers came in, he seemed to mark a breath of fresh air from Burns's more hard-assed approach and was exactly what the team needed. Then again, the team has also acquired a new first line thanks to brilliant GMing by Serge Savard. Still, players from the 1993 team have praised Demers's contribution, his successful use of positive psychology and motivational techniques. Whether a rookie Boucher would have been the right man for our veteran-laden core is, I think, a good question. Maybe guys like Gio and Gill and Hammer are better-suited to a seasoned veteran like Martin, who has been through as many wars as they have.

None of this is to deny that the main onus falls on the players, not the coach. I just want to resist the idea that coaches are interchangeable parts.

I agree that Boucher's rise has been meteoric and impressive, but JC and Wamsley are right that he landed in the perfect situation. Coaching in Tampa is NOT equivalent to Montreal (the toughest gig in hockey). We also should not forget that our existing coach surely maxed out the potential of his decimated roster this season, and that lots of coaches look great for a year or two before their act wears thin. To invert illWill's metaphor, there's something to be said with sticking to a relationship than you know works, instead of running off with the sexy new babe. Full props to Boucher but I'm not sure we need to be ripping our hair out that we don't have him at this juncture.

I didn't mean to imply that they are interchangeable, but that they are not as responsible for success as their players are.

(note: Bowman coached the Sabres to 110 points in his first season and a trip to the Conference Finals, but the Sabres 5 seasons before Bowman resulted in 113, 105, 104, 105 and 88 points with a Stanley Cup appearance), so I don't think it is entirely accurate to say his arrival was the reason for the improvement.)

You singled out Carbo, but he also had a 1st place Eastern Conference finish on his resume as well as a couple of meltdowns.

It is the easy storyline. The media always searches through a team and looks for a difference between the roster in the average year and the good year. They then take the difference and try to figure out which change is the reason for the improvement. Story complete.

I think it was pretty obvious before the season that Boucher picked a team that had nowhere to go but up.

Coaching is not as easy as everybody believes, but I believe that a bad coach can ###### up a good team more than a good coach can improve a bad team. I also think that the differences are easier to detect in the playoffs when the ability to line match, exploit weaknesses and motivate are more prevalent than in the regular season with a different opponent every night. Talent carries you in the regular season.

The NHL is not the NBA. You CANNOT win the Stanley Cup with 1-2 lines. You need talent and depth, no coach in the world can make up for a team that lacks these things for four rounds. They are overplayed because fans generally don't understand the game to the degree where they can pinpoint the issues that ail the team, so they simplify and the easiest thing to do is blame the guy behind the bench.

It leads to ridiculous discussions about how Carbo caused the Habs to get extra penalties by complaining too much and that Martin causes the Habs to get extra penalties because he doesn't complain enough.

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We had an injury list a mile long that was only growing. Even if we got past Boston, I'm not sure we would have made it out of round 2 vs WSH.

I don't think our chances of making the ECF was all that great.

Nobody can be sure, but that a team I consider to be our equal got this far shows that Montreal had a chance this year.

They beat Washington last year when the odds were much worse. The difference between Montreal and a Cup final this year may very well have been injuries.

Not to say that I am unhappy with Jacques Martin, but I often think what could have been had Boucher became the next coach of the Canadiens. Would they have finished higher in the standings this year? What about the next few years? Would I actually enjoy watching the coach's media address? We all know Martin is as dry as a Nun's vagina. I just think that it would have been nice to have some personality behind the bench. And again, I reiterate that I am happy with what Martin has done so far, an East final and a game 7 overtime loss are excellent results considering. I compare it to having a crush on a really beautiful girl who is absolutely perfect for you. However, she is in a relationship with some loser and it's just a matter of time before it ends. In the meantime, you find a really great girl who has a good job and takes care of the house, so you marry her. Then during your marriage, the other girl becomes available and you sit there and always think about what could have been with her. And then a friend will say, if it's meant to be, it's meant to be...

:clap::lol:

That pretty much sums it up but I'm confident that Boucher will coach for the Habs one day. We'll just get him when he's more experienced.

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Nobody can be sure, but that a team I consider to be our equal got this far shows that Montreal had a chance this year.

They beat Washington last year when the odds were much worse. The difference between Montreal and a Cup final this year may very well have been injuries.

:clap::lol:

That pretty much sums it up but I'm confident that Boucher will coach for the Habs one day. We'll just get him when he's more experienced.

In the new NHL, they are a legit contender moving forward with the roster they have right now. They might not be the Canucks level favourite, but they are certainly as good as the Lightning/Bruins are right now.

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In the new NHL, they are a legit contender moving forward with the roster they have right now. They might not be the Canucks level favourite, but they are certainly as good as the Lightning/Bruins are right now.

Absolutely, the Canadiens are putting together a contender and I have no doubt we'll see great things next season.

If moderately healthy we are as good as any team in the East.

My point was that the way things were going at the end - Desharnais and Eller injured ( along with everyone else previously on the list ) the odds were getting pretty stacked against us.

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Last season's SCF featured no-name goaltending..

I'm think this year is a complete opposite.

The funny thing is, neither of those guys is 100% convincing. Certainly neither of them carries the team, wills it to win, or gets in the opposition's head and projects invincibility in the fashion of Roy or Brodeur. Luongo at least has it in him to be a truly great goalie - he hasn't reliably put it all together though (but don't get me wrong, I'd take him on my team). What I'm really saying is that neither team got here by virtue of their goaltending. They are where they deserve to be based on their overall roster and if you inserted another good goalie in their nets, they'd probably still be here.

Otherwise put: Price outplayed both of them wall to wall this season IMHO.

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In the new NHL, they are a legit contender moving forward with the roster they have right now. They might not be the Canucks level favourite, but they are certainly as good as the Lightning/Bruins are right now.

It's funny , but ...especially due to such critical injuries, I had never thought of our team as contender quality this season, but it doesn't seem so unreasonable now.

Go Canucks Go!

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I'm actually kind of pushing for Boston in the Final, I just really don't like Vancouver. I often start going for the team that eliminates my beloved Habs just because I get to know the team so well over the course of the series (season in this case). That and I actually like Tim Thomas, and they are kind of the underdog in the series.

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Thank God. It's about time, and Shanahan better re-invent the whole process. Like making automatic discipline for different infractions.

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Thank God. It's about time, and Shanahan better re-invent the whole process. Like making automatic discipline for different infractions.

I agree. A measure of consistency is long overdue.

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Well ain't that a bitch.

Let's see if the media mentions "intent" or "hockey play" or tells us how Rome "isn't that type of player".

I am also looking forward to Bruin fan telling me how this was dirty after defending Chara.

I am a big fan of karma right about now.

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Cbc bruins love in talking about how the hit was late and blah blah. Pathetic. It Is suapendable, but so was Chara

Oh, I fully expect the bias machine to start churning. I mean, if Horton didn't fall that way and his head didn't make first contact we wouldn't be talking about this, would we. It was unfortunate, but it wasn't intentional.

Dripping with sarcasm.

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So everyone agrees it is suspendable offense, yes?

I thought the Chara incident was a no-brainer, so I refuse to guess on anything that involves the words "discipline" and "NHL".

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I don't see how they can suspend Rome for a late hit. It was a penalty, but the league was pretty clear on the Chara hit that a hockey play doesn't constitute a suspension. I thought the Chara hit was far worse.

I look forward to the league being inconsistent however...

Anyone else notice how every game that is either Boston winning by a lot or losing by a lot turns into a complete gong show. As soon as the Bruins got up 4 goals, it has been one dirty shot after another. slashes. Punches after the whistles.

At this point, I wouldn't put the top two lines from Vancouver on the ice. Its simply too dangerous.

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If this doesn't wake up Vancouver, I don't know what will. They didn't show up and certainly gave up after 3 goals. If I was Boston, I would not have run up this score in the last 5 minutes. They might be in for quite the shock in the next game.

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If this doesn't wake up Vancouver, I don't know what will. They didn't show up and certainly gave up after 3 goals. If I was Boston, I would not have run up this score in the last 5 minutes. They might be in for quite the shock in the next game.

One game means nothing. Montreal blasted Philly 5-1 last season in Game 3 and were shutout 3-0 the next game with barely a fight.

The Canucks are the better team, but the Bruins have been riding unsustainable percentages all season. I expect the Canucks will go up 3-1 like they have in every series this year.

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