Thornton, just trying to prove me right

UPDATE - It gets better!

So since I wrote this piece Thornton hasn't scored in 4 games andover that period he has taken 6 shots.

Thanks for the contribution.

Averaging 19 minutes a game, he has ZERO points in 4 games with 6 shots. Awesome.

Savard on the other hand just had 3 assists tonight against the Canadiens. Important divisional game, teams best offensive player steps up and contributes. WOW, what a theory, a player earning his money.

By the way, Thornton has 27 points in 28 games, Savard has 31 points in 25 games. Just thought that might help firm things up. End to the update-

Thornton, just trying to prove me right

He has played 3 more games than Boston's new number 1 and his value and impact is clearly obvious. Boston you lose again.

Joe Thornton
24 Games, 7 goals, 20 assists, 27 points, -5, 12 PIM, MPG 19:16

Marc Savard
21 Games, 6 goals, 21 assist, 27 points, +4, 14 PIM, MPG 19:17

Joe Thornton, your MVP ladies and gentlemen.

Same points, same minutes, same penalties.....

But Thornton is minus 5, ..........MINUS 5!

He is minus 5 on a team that is 17 -7 and is plus 23 in goal difference. That is absolutely unforgivable from the teams highest paid player.

Did I mention that he is also making $2 million a season more than Marc Savard?

In fact, Thornton's entire line is minus five, which means that he and his line have the worst plus minus on the San Jose Sharks. Just out of curiosity who does the number one line generally play against? The opponents checking line, or number4 unit right? So playing against the weakest offensive lines night in and night out Thornton has been outscored. GREAT!

Oh yeah, Joe Thornton's departure has really hurt the Bruins. Is anybody going to wake up to this nonsense. Thornton's entire playoff career has proven he isn't worth a dime. Now he is confirming is status as a player who follows up every good season with a disappointing one.

So the Bruins are laughing stocks around the league for saving US$1 million on Thornton by getting 3 quality players and then saving a further US$2 million by signing a guy who is currently a better points per game player than Thornton. Boy are those Bruins stupid.

PS. at this points last season he had 33 points with the Bruins. Now he has 27 points. He was a shit player with 33 points last year, now what is he with 27 points at minus 5.

Would he be worth trading now?

Picking on Thornton is Easy When He Sucks

First a discalimer:

Joe Thornton is 2 completely different players. When the surf is up, or whatever turns his crank he is "JOE THORNTON MOTHERFUCKER!". When he is sad or lonley or whatever turns that bitches crank he is "joey thornton, please read the note my mom pinned to my coat".

His actual full name is Joseph Eric Thornton, so from now on, when I talk about the guy who can change a game and make everyone around him look better I will talk about Joe "motherfucker" Thornton, but when I talk about the guy who started the season with the Bruins last year and BLEW or the guy that did ZERO for San Jose in the playoffs last year I will talk about "Eric Thornton".

Trust me, I will never write about Joe ever again, whinny bitch, I will only write about Fucking ERIC THORNTON the bitch who likes haircuts and beads more than hockey. A guy who capitained an original six franchise, but couldn't get motivated until he was traded to the beach and the best roller hockey team in the NRHA...Oh I'm sorry there is an actual NHL team in San Jose now? I didn't realize. Well that makes sense, no Winnipeg, no Quebec, no Hartford, but San Jose has a team. Great, perfect thanks NHL fucking bastards.

So how is Eric doing in San Jose? I never could bring myself to write anything but FUCK and SHIt when describing Eric's first season in San Jose. He won the Hart Trophy. FUCK. A guy who played like shit for one third of a full season. A guy who abandoned the team he captained long before the trade won the Hart trophy. SHIT. Jagr (who I fucking hate byt the way) deserved the trophy and giving it to Eric is exactly what is wrong with the NHL today.

That said, how is he doing this year? We aren't quite at the famous 23 game mark that Eric reached before beign dumped by the Bruins last year, but he has played 15 games, so we should be able to see something.

Boy can we. ERIC IS IN THE HOUSE!

It took the HART and ART ROSS trophy winner 12 games to score his first goal, and after 15 games he has 2 goals. He is currently shooting the lights out at 6%. That is great in sledge hockey, not to good in the NHL. He has an incredible 18 points, well below his awful start in Boston last year and 12 of his 18 points have come on the powerplay. I am never impressed with powerplay points, you need them, but you cannot rely on them. Of course that was old NHL, before making scoring as easy as possible was the only rule that mattered. So Thornton has 2 goals, 6 even strength points, a 6% shooting percentage in his first 15 games. Oh yeah, and he is minus 5. Now do we see why the Bruins dumped his ass?

"Hey man, the guy still has 18 points in 15 games, better than a point a game and he is on pace for 100 again."

My response - Sure he is asshole, but the guy makes franchise player money and contributes like a third line winger. He is on pace for a 100 points, all powerplay with 11 fucking goals, and he is not a physical presence and his points, as usual, are in most cases meaningless contributions to losses or blowouts.

Some recent examples. How about minus 1, no points in a 2-1 loss, or zero points 3 shots in a 2-1 loss, or better still zero points, minus 3 in a 3-1 loss. The best part of these three examples are that they all happened in the last ten games and they were all HOME GAMES. The fans in San Jose got to see the best that their $7 million man had to offer.

So everytime I think of the trade, I get happier and happier. Chara (Thornton's salary replacement) is playing 30 minutes a game and has 3 goals for 8 points and new "Thornton" Savard has 15 points in 11 games and just watching them you can see that once they gel as a unit, they will be much better than last year, thanks to players who want to play and a leader (who I hate by the way) that the team respects.

Living was easy before someone took away 6 games

Everything has been pretty swell around here for a couple of weeks so I have been content to be rantless.

(of course work sucks, but to save myself from a Parisian firing I never mention my actual job, workplace yes, job no)

The problem today came form the fact that we are basically a month into the new NHL season and the Bruins are in last place. Oh no, whatever will I do, they suck again etc. etc. etc.

Except when I look at the standings a huge problem arises. The Bruins have only played 9 fucking games. We are in the fifth week of the season and the Bruins have played 9 games. 9 FUCKING GAMES.

They were the last team to play a home game and are going to be the last team to play 10 games. At this point they are below a 2 game a week pace. For the past three weeks the Bruins have played on Thursday and Saturday night, that is it.

How is a team with so many new players and a new coach supposed to gel and learn a system if they only play twice a week?

We have all complained about the new NHL schedule because every team in the NHL has to bore themselves to death with 8 games against their division while playing 0 games against 1 out of conference division. What that means for actual hockey fans is that last year, for example, The Bruins Leafs and Canadiens didn't play Detroit or Chicago. So the Original six teams never met last year, but the glorious original six teams did have to make 2 trips to fucking Florida.

WHAT A JOKE

Back to the real problem. A schedule should be heavy at the beginning to get a system going, lighter in the middle to avoid fatigue and then it should be a blood bath at the end. But for the Bruins, year in year out, they are still playing preseason hockey in fucking November and then they have to look up at the rest of the league for the rest of the season.

Why is that a problem? Well the Bruins play 29 of 82 games in March and February, not to mention 4 games in the last 7 days or April. That is 33 games in 63 days. AT THE END OF THE SEASON. How fresh do you think they will be for the playoffs? Well rested? Ready to go? Injury free? In a six month season the Bruins will play 40% of their games in 2 months. How does that make any sense?

Here is the issue as it stands today.

The Bruins have:

1 game in hand on 2 teams
2 games in hand on 10 teams
3 games in hand on 9 teams
4 games in hand on 4 teams
5 games in hand on 3 teams

and...drum roll

6 games in hand on 1 team

Yeas I actually wrote that. In the first week on November the Bruins have 6 game six in hand on a team in the NHL. That is 12 potential points. Last year that was the difference between 20th place and 7th. AND that 7th place team could have finish 2nd overall with extra 12 points.

Or how about even more disturbing that the Bruins have 3 or more games in hand on 17 NHL teams, that is at least 6 points. They are in a 6 point hole on over 50% of the NHL after four weeks and they didn't even play the games. 6 points changes the season for Toronto, Atlanta, Los Angeles and Minnesota last year.

So to sum up. Fuck the "NEW" NHL the rules suck the game sucks and the schedule keeps finding new ways of sucking.

Fuck Bettman