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