Bruins to keep same Seguin-less alignment vs. Wings
Seguin/By S. Bradley
BOSTON — The Bruins held an optional morning skate today at TD Garden in preparation for their evening match-up with Detroit.
Once most of the players had hit the dressing room, the only three remaining guys on the ice were perennial healthy scratch Mark Stuart, the suspended Daniel Paille and rookie Tyler Seguin. If that wasn’t enough indication that Seguin would be a healthy scratch for the second straight game, head coach Claude Julien confirmed the team will use the same 18 skaters against the Red Wings that they did again Montreal Wednesday.
Julien was then asked how Seguin has handled not only the healthy scratch but also the day of practice in between that game and today.
“Fine. He’s very understanding and we also understand that he wants to play,” said Julien. “So that’s basically how I would answer that question.”
Tuukka Rask opted out of the skate, so he’s expected to get the start in goal.
We did have a big center that could skate. Problem was he preferred to water ski most shifts. I’ve watched him play a whole game and he maybe took twenty strides. He likes his summers to be long. Port Stanley is great that time of year. Who am I?
And another thing. Our supposed franchise centerman didn’t play much in the Gold Medal game. His defensive prowess was useless against a very fast U.S team. Watch the tape and you’ll see him nailed to the bench. I like a lot of Patrice’s game but his skating has not improved. He’s still a very good player but could you imagine with his tool box if he could skate?
I would love to have one center that can pick them up and put them down. The game has always been about skating. Jeff Carter or Ryan Getzlaffe.You need size and speed at that position anymore. If you’ve got huge wingers with size and speed maybe you can have a smaller center but you can lose out at the dot and down low if you’re weak. I’ve watched for years as we’ve been beaten by faster teams. How did Carolina beat us two years ago? Only a blind man could see we couldn’t skate with them. Seguin will give us some skating some day but geez it’s the same guys drafting now that seemed to think we’re fine speed wise.
hammil is an undersized crappy skater. trade him already.
Maybe ‘watered down’ wasn’t the best adjective. I didn’t want to say lousy. You make a good point about it being a defensive league. That to me says there isn’t a lot of skill. Defense is a state of mind. I’ll take the ‘O’ any day. It is a very competitive league and produces well rounded players. I’m not slagging the ‘DUB’ I just think it’s lost some of it’s depth. The ‘O’s advantage is it’s population base I know. Minor Hockey enrollment is down across Canada and I think the U.S system is catching up. I’ve got a kid in Minor Hockey and I see the finacial strain it puts on families. We gave up some vacations just so he could play competitively and I’m sure he will be a good beer league player in a few years. Minor Hockey has become a business here and I’ve seen a lot of good players leave the game too early. Our center didn’t have AAA when I was a kid. Every good player could play with in the city and still get drafted to major jr. We still produced many players that had good NHL careers. Is the coaching and training better. Yes. Are all of the best athletes playing hockey. No. Every able bodied kid in my neighbourhood played when I was a kid. Now it’s hard to field house-league teams.
Nifty – agree on the showcasing of Hammil, although putting up big #’s in the W isn’t an easy feat. Its generally viewed as the most defensive of the Jr leagues. Watered-down isn’t really an accurate adjective.
Hammil’s actually looked pretty decent, so far. Certainly not totally out of place, and has shown a bit of the creativity he was drafted for.
Wings have been faltering. Babcock is in a worse mood than normal. They had a hard practice yesterday. Not the best time to get the Wings. We’ll see.
More need for Thornton, not less
Matt,
Have had this thought most of the season when playing teams like the Red Wings (more finesse no thugs) their is no need for Thornton. So why not sit Shawn instead of Tyler ?
Thanks
meh.
I believe Hamill is being ‘showcased’.Maybe some Western GM’s will remember he put up points in a watered down ‘DUB’.
This is sort of an aside, but I think that this offseason, Seguin should look into doing what Blake Griffin did before his sophomore year at OU to put some hair on his chest: go to an army bootcamp for a few weeks. Either that, or he needs to sign up to get Gary Roberts to whup his ass all summer.
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Caron and Hamill didn’t much either