Boston Bruins: A spaniard in Beantown

flea · Post by **flea** » Mon Feb 20, 2006 10:20 pm

archibalduk wrote:
flea wrote:(I know u are also a B's fan, right!!??)
Darn right

No problems at all! It's great to be able to help you!

I want to know what your secret is with the Bruins. I haven't been able to make the playoffs yet

B's forever!!! Nice to have another Bruins fan around!!!

Just sad the Joe T trade....I have "imported" my Joe jersey from the States just one season ago and now he's a Shark....sad, lol!!!

Well, I made some quick changes when I started 3 seasons ago and I really was very succesfull. Won the President Trophy in my first year with 116 points but failed in the Eastern semifinals against Philly. In the second year I finished first in the East with 115 points, but lost to the Pengs (who won the cup) in the first round after leading the series 3-0....lost them 3-4!!!
Third season I finished 5th in the East but managed to win the Cup for the first time!!!

My lines for the third season:

Chistov - Thornton - Bergeron
Sturm - Legwand - Ryder
Vermette - Boyes - Bochenski
Upshall - Bonk - Lehtinen/Colby Armstrong

Kuba - Boynton
Alberts - George York (rookie)
Mark Stuart - Suchy

Raycroft - Toivonen

I think I have a good tactic. Attacking and skating in the first. Normal, attacking in the second. Normal, dump and chase for third and defensive, dump and chase for the fourth.

If u want I can write it more exactly....extra orders, PowerPlay and so on...I found it in the Sigagames forum, combined it with my own tactics and it worked out very well as u can see!!!

Just tell me if I can help u out!!!

Greets and GO BRUINS!!!

flea · Post by **flea** » Mon Feb 20, 2006 10:25 pm

Ahhh, I just forgot to write it down in the last post:

I think the Stories and Record forum is a great idea!!! I enjoy to read other guys stories and records and I also thought to write down my own experience with the Bruins!!! If I have time I will start this night or tomorrow. There u will see all the lines for all the three seasons.

My first moves was to trade away Hall Gill and Zhamnov, LOL!!!

Greets

Post by **archibalduk** » Mon Feb 20, 2006 10:38 pm

If you're willing to share your secrets then please do. Gracias

I might have to try out some of your tactics and see if I can get the Bruins to the level you have gotten them to. I like how you have worked some rookies into the team too. I see you're planning for the future. Very wise

I might actually split part of this topic and move it into the Stories and Records Forum...

Post by **Minstrel** » Mon Feb 20, 2006 10:39 pm

flea wrote:My first moves was to trade away Hall Gill and Zhamnov, LOL!!!

As a Hawks fan who had to deal with the pain of dealing just-entering-his-prime Jeremy Roenick for Zhamnov and even though I'll never admit to such dark times... Captain Alex Zhamnov *shudder* I agree completely with your decision.

And of course allow me to welcome you to TBL too

If you have any problems with the graphical add-ons Arch has written a great "what goes where" guide which is atop the Graphic Forum and anything not covered there just ask

noctambulist · Post by **noctambulist** » Mon Feb 20, 2006 10:39 pm

Wow, I'm impressed too. I'm in my first season with the Bruins and about 52 games in I just fought my way into the 8th spot. My Eastern Conference is really tight with only 8 points separating 8th to last place.

I can't wait to read your story.

flea · Post by **flea** » Mon Feb 20, 2006 11:00 pm

Thank u guys!!

Well, I have to say that the first one to be surprised was myself!!!

When I started the game I promised myself not to "save" my way to the Stanley Cup and it was hard to keep....even more when u lead a series 3 nothing and then lose it 3-4, lol

!!! But a promise is a promise and I went on to the postseason and made some good additions for the team.

I will recollect all the infos this night and will start to write my "story" tomorrow because its already late over here in Valencia and I have to get up really early tomorrow morning....unfortunately, lol!!!

See u guys around!!!

Greets and good night!!!

PD: there are really a nice collections of emoticons here

flea · Post by **flea** » Tue Feb 21, 2006 11:50 pm

OK, here starts my adventure with the Bruins!!! I hope that it does not turn out too boring for u guys to read it....will do my best!!! Also, I hope that my inglish is more or less comprehensive!!

Iam playing with the latest patch 2.13 but I have started without the unfaking and the rosters are from the beginning of the 05-06 season....thats important because we still have nÂº19 in our team...

A spaniard in Beantown

Its summer in Boston and the Herald and the Globe are printing in first page one of the biggest hockey-news of the last seasons!!!
GM Mike O'Connel leaves his job with the Bruins!!!!
He has a pressconference and tells that he feels he's not capable anymore. He tells the press that he's afraid of doing some huuuge mistakes in the future and that he has dreams of trading a franchise player!!!

Altrough he has done his job by resigning C Joe Thornton, RW Glen Murray, G Andrew Raycroft and signing some interesting players like C Zhamnov, LW Brad Isbister or C Dave Scatchard, he feels that hes not loved anymore in Boston and that he has to move on.

....two days later another "bomb" explodes in Beantown as the Boston Globe anounces that a young man from Spain will take over the GM spot in Boston!!!
Luis Miguel Ledo is a Switzerland native spaniard from Valencia with experience in the NFL and MLB as GM and had also four more or less succesfull seasons as Nascar driver.
Thats a biiig surprise in Boston and the fans around the B's dont know what to expect from a guy that never trained or managed a hockey club.

....

So two days later I took over my new job as GM with my longtime favorite NHL team: the Boston Bruins!!!
I knew that I had little time to adjust, because the board expected already a playoff entrance in my first year, but I also knew that we have a great team here and with some trades the goal to reach the playoffs would be reachable!!!

After watching my team I felt I had to improve a bit the defence and the left wing spot so I did my first trade:

BOSTON: RW: Colton Orr, RD: Jonathan Girard and the Rights to C: Andy Hilbert to
EDMONTON, for: LW: Ethan Moreau, LD: Steve Staios and a 4th Round Draft Pick in 2006

some days later came the second trade:

BOSTON: LD: Kevin Dallman, Rights to C: Wacey Rabbit and a 7th Round Draft Pick in 2006 for
PHOENIX: RD: David Tanabe and a 5th Round Draft Pick in 2006

So with that the season started with a very offensive tactic (will explain it a bit later on) and the wins that we obtained in the preseason continued to come also in the regular season.

For general surprise LW Shane McEachern started the season with his best numbers and also C Joe Thornton and RW Glen Murray produced very well, but we needed more power in the center position, because Zhamnov and Boyes didnt play very well. So more trades came along:

BOSTON: C: David Krejci, Right to LD: Lars Jonsson and Right to RW: Martin Samuelsson to
COLUMBUS: C: Todd Marchant

and

BOSTON: Right to LD: Matt Lashoff, Right to LW: Petr Kalus and a 3rd Round Draft Pick in 2006 for
CALGARY: C: Matt Lombardi, 2nd Round Draft Pick in 2006 and 3rd Round Draft Pick in 2007

With that the team continued to roll on and Matt Lombardi and Todd Marchant did a good job on offense and defense. Brad Boyes was my 4th line center, so we really didnt need Alexei Zhamnov (who also was injured about 4 months and we had to wait to trade him) anymore and he was shipped to San Jose for C: Wayne Primeau (this name and team are strange sounded for B's fans like me

).

So the weeks passed by and about 54 wins and some more minor trades later we reached the end of the regular season....AS PRESIDENTS TROPHY WINNERS!!!

The team stats were: BOSTON BRUINS: 54 - 20 - 8 -- 116 Pts. -- 317 Goals forced, 240 Goals received - PP: 26%, PK: 84%

The lines in this first season:

SAMSONOV - THORNTON - MURRAY
McEACHERN - LOMBARDI - BERGERON
MOREAU - MARCHANT - BALASTIK
AXELSSON - BOYES - GREEN Also in the rotation: LW: Antoine Vermette, C: Wayne Primeau and RW: Jason King

LEETCH - BOYNTON
STAIOS - TANABE
ALBERTS - SLEGR Also with playingtime: Jiri Slegr and Ruslan Salei

RAYCROFT - TOIVONEN

Top B's performers in 05-06:

C: Joe Thornton: 32 G + 67 A = 99 PTS.
RW: Glen Murray: 45 + 37 = 84 PTS.
LW: Shawn McEachern: 32 + 51 = 83 PTS.
RW: Patrice Bergeron: 37 + 34 = 73 PTS.
LW: Sergei Samsonov: 28 + 29 = 57 PTS. in 44 Games played
C: Matt Lombardi: 18 + 45 = 63 PTS.
RD: Nick Boynton: 12 + 38 = 50 PTS.

So after a really succesfull season the playoffs started and our first opponent were the Pittsburgh Penguins. They managed to grab the final spot for the playoffs just two games before the end of the regular season.
We did a great job and won 4 straight games and passed the first round 4-0 with the morale being on top!!!
But then came the Philadelphia Flyers, who finished 7th in the East and upset the second ranked New Jersey Devils in the first round, and won the first two games in Boston in overtime. We traveled to Philly two games back and tried to come back...but unfortunately we lost the third game again in overtime and then the forth game we went under really quickly by 3 goals and just managed to come back by one......so the dream of bringing back Lord Stanleys Cup to Beantown had to wait another season!!!
The Tampa Bay Lightning went on to beat the surprising Nashville Predators 4-3 and hold back one more year the Cup in Florida!!!

The awards were dominated by Tampa players, having C: Brad Richards picking up the Hart, the Conn Smythe and the Art Ross Trophy with 140 total points in the regular season. Martin Brodeur won another Vezina Trohpy and Alexander Ovechkin beat Sydney Crosby for the Calder Trophy.
Joe Thornton was selected Fans player of the year by Boston fans

So the season was officially over and we were looking forward to the draft....

Edmonton picked RW: Michael Frolik in first place, St. Louis choosed C: Bryan Little and Phoenix drafted C/LW: Peter Mueller in third place.
Our first round draft pick with nÂº29 was LW: Vladislav Kostyukhin from Shawinigan (QMJHL)

I think we had a good draft because we traded for picks and had 3 picks in the second round and 3 more in the fourth....other notable Bruins picks were:
Round 2 / nÂº 10: C: John Hughes, Sault St. Marie (OHL)
2/20: LW: Matt Beleskey, Belleville (OHL)
2/29: C: Chris Moran, Omaha (USHL)
3/29: RW/C: Anton Skorykh, P.E.I. (QMJHL) and
4/3: RD/LD: Tysen Dowzak, Kelowna (WHL)

Right now Iam in the postseason of the 2007-2008 season and I have signed all this picks (except Chris Moran who was traded, to clear cap-space, for two prospects) and they will spend most of the coming season between Providence and the B's.

So that was my first year with the Boston Bruins!!!

I really hope that the read was not too long and that it was not too boring!!! If u guys think I should do my second season shorter or u guys miss something, please tell me!!!
...I will continue with the 2006-2007 season tomorrow!!!

Have a nice night and greets!!!

Post by **archibalduk** » Wed Feb 22, 2006 7:12 pm

Nice summary! I'm taking notes because I'm gonna start a new Bruins game soon with the latest patch and Smetana's rosters (although that'll mean no Joe Thornton).

How is Brad Boyes going in your game? I'm a big fan of him and I always try to develop him into a top player. He did wonders for me in EHM 2004.

bruins72 · Post by **bruins72** » Wed Feb 22, 2006 8:55 pm

archibalduk wrote:How is Brad Boyes going in your game? I'm a big fan of him and I always try to develop him into a top player. He did wonders for me in EHM 2004.

You didn't ask me but I'll throw my 2 cents in anyways. I love the Bruins. They're my hometown team. I've tried to develop Brad Boyes in several different games (with different patches and roster packs) but he never seems to turn into a top player. He's usually good for being a decent 3rd liner. He can play on the 2nd line in a pinch or if you've got a really weak team. If you can get a good return for him, you're better off trading him away. Of course, that's not the case in real life. He's done quite well this season and really seems to be playing great with Bergeron and Sturm.

Post by **archibalduk** » Wed Feb 22, 2006 9:46 pm

He's doing great this year - he's really breaking into the team. He's second in points in the Bruins with 16G+28A=44.

Maybe he's a little underrated in the game. I'll see how he does in mine.

Do you get down to many of the games?

flea · Post by **flea** » Wed Feb 22, 2006 11:10 pm

Well, as I said I have played 3 seasons and Brad is doing so-so so far

I started to play him as my fourth line center and sometimes he played also in special teams.
Here his stats so far:

Season 2005-2006: 67 GP, 7 G. - 8 Ast. - 15 Pts. +/- -6 - 6,52 Avg.
Season 2006-2007: 60 GP, 9 G. - 11 Ast. - 20 Pts. +/- +5 - 6,8 Avg.
Season 2007-2008: 74 GP, 11 G. - 12 Ast. - 23 Pts. +/- +5 - 6,7 Avg.

I hope that this next season will be his breakthrough season because I have lost Joe Thornton to free agency (but could resign Bergeron!!!) and Brad will see a lot more playing time as I will probably switch him in second and third line center.

I think Brad is generally worse in the game as in real life, but we also have to see that this year is his breakthrough and the game was already made, right???

Hopefully between Patrice, Brad and Marco they can lift the Bruins to the playoffs this year!!!

noctambulist · Post by **noctambulist** » Thu Feb 23, 2006 1:26 pm

flea wrote: Luis Miguel Ledo is a Switzerland native spaniard from Valencia with experience in the NFL and MLB as GM and had also four more or less succesfull seasons as Nascar driver.

I laughed out loud at this. Too funny.

Good story and I'm going to try some of your tactics.

Brad Boyes is doing great this year and has really developed into a real player on the LW, though I must admit that I voted for Tim Thomas for the 7th player award this year. No one expected him to come up from Providence and play like he has.

Maybe the key is to retrain Boyes on the LW?

flea · Post by **flea** » Thu Feb 23, 2006 2:29 pm

noctambulist wrote:
flea wrote: Luis Miguel Ledo is a Switzerland native spaniard from Valencia with experience in the NFL and MLB as GM and had also four more or less succesfull seasons as Nascar driver.
I laughed out loud at this. Too funny.

Good story and I'm going to try some of your tactics.

Brad Boyes is doing great this year and has really developed into a real player on the LW, though I must admit that I voted for Tim Thomas for the 7th player award this year. No one expected him to come up from Providence and play like he has.

Maybe the key is to retrain Boyes on the LW?

Yeps, I can imagine, its really not very common,

...the first part is true, but the second one is only "virtual"!! I mean that I adore all the great american leagues and I have played some other manager games for the MLB and the NFL....and Iam also racing, as probably the only spanish guy around, in a online league in Nascar (with Nascar Simracing)...thats why I wrote that

Thanks for the comments....I like to hear that u guys liked the story!!!

Part 2 is next (probably today!!!) so stay tuned

Greets from Spain

ThaFlea

bruins72 · Post by **bruins72** » Thu Feb 23, 2006 4:13 pm

archibalduk wrote:He's doing great this year - he's really breaking into the team. He's second in points in the Bruins with 16G+28A=44. Maybe he's a little underrated in the game. I'll see how he does in mine.

Do you get down to many of the games?

I definitely think he's underrated in the game. That happens a lot. Guys that develop at a slower or even normal pace tend to get underrated because they're not a hot prospect while others players get rated too high because they're full of potential. So many young guys are given too much potential in the game when you really don't know how well they'll do in the pro game. Look at all the guys who were rated as top prospects in earlier versions of EHM and turned out to be marginal prospects or depth guys in the latest version.

I don't get to make it to many Bruins games. They just cost too much. I'd rather watch the game at home on the big screen tv for free than pay to sit in the nose-bleed section. If you want good seats you're going to pay about $75 for each seat, plus parking (about $20), plus drinks (about $6 a beer). It adds up quickly. It makes it even harder to shell out that kind of money when they've been so disappointing this season. At least it looked like they were turning things around before the Olympic break.

flea · Post by **flea** » Fri Feb 24, 2006 4:40 pm

OK....first thank u guys for the comments!!

Its nice to see that somebody is reading your story

Here comes the second part of my adventure as Bostons GM!!!

SEASON 2006-2007:

After a really good first season I wanted to establish myself and the team as a contender for the Cup and the board agreed with me and asked for a playoff appearance.

I was more or less happy with my roster, but I searched for a bit more depth in defence and the left wing.

So I started to pick up players in the free agency and the most important transactions were:

LD: Filip Kuba
RD/LD: Radoslav Suchy
C/LW: Mike York
RW: Cris Clark
RW/LW: Pierre Dagenais

On the other hand we also lost some players to free agency like D: Brian Leetch (I didnt want to pay his 4 million $ contract), D: Ruslan Salei, LW: Per-Johan Axelsson or G: Tim Thomas.

Then, another thing I wanted to do was making my team a bit younger, so I started to trade away (mostly for draft picks) some of my "older" players...also to clear some cap-room:

C: Todd Marchant to Los Angeles for a third round draft pick
LW: Shawn McEachern to Florida for a second round draft pick
LD: Steve Staios to Chicago for a second round draft pick

The season started more or less with the same success as last year....we made some really interesting pickups in the waivers like LW/RW Daniel Sedin from Vancouver or RW/LW Ruslan Fedotenko from Tampa Bay.
The lines were the following:

SAMSONOV - THORNTON - BERGERON
MOREAU - YORK - MURRAY
D. SEDIN - LOMBARDI - BALASTIK
VERMETTE - BOYES - SAMUELSSON
Also in the rotation: C: Michal Handzus and RW/LW: Ruslan Fedotenko

KUBA - BOYNTON
ALBERTS - TANABE
ST.JACQUES - SUCHY
Also in the rotation: LD: Mark Stuart

RAYCROFT - TOIVONEN

I played with the same offensive tactic as last year and it turned out to work as well as last season. We finished with 115 points, first in the Eastern again, but we coudnt repeat with the Presidents Trophy as the Dallas Stars had a brilliant season an finished with 121 points.

BOSTON BRUINS SEASON 2007-2008: 53 - 20 - 9 -- 115 Pts. -- 349 GF, 283 GA - PP 24% PK 81%

I was happy with the team in general...only black spot was the penalty kill with only 81%!!! There I probably have to change something!!!

Statisticly the best Bruin was LW Sergei Samsonov, who finished with 118 points in 82 games....here the individual stats:

LW: Sergei Samsonov: 82 GP: 51 G + 67 A = 118 Pts./ +28 / Rat. 7,78
C: Joe Thornton: 73 GP: 36 G + 63 A = 99 Pts./ +24 / Rat. 7,86 *
RW: Patrice Bergeron: 82 GP: 42 G + 50 A = 92 Pts./ +18 / Rat. 7,55
RW: Glen Murray: 74 GP: 44 G + 41 A = 85 Pts./ +10 / Rat. 7,72
C/LW: Mike York: 59 GP: 24 G + 16 A = 40 Pts./ -4 / Rat. 7,24
RD: Nick Boynton: 82 GP: 11 G + 40 A = 51 Pts. / +13 / Rat. 7,49
LD: Filip Kuba: 65 GP: 3 G + 42 A = 45 Pts./ +7 / Rat. 7,34

* Joe Thornton finished again with 99 points and couldnt transpass the 100 points mark again by one point!!! Sadly he injured IN THE LAST GAME of the regular season and was also out for the playoffs!!!!

And it turned to be out that his injury was one of the key for the playoff burst!!!

So the playoffs were about to start and Joe was out for about two months with an dislocated shoulder!!! Afortunately I could claim C Michal Handzus, who was put on waivers from the Flyers, about a month before the season finished. So at least I had a replacement for Joe. Sadly he was a total bust!!! Playing really poorly during the end of the season and also in the playoffs.

Playoffs started and we went on to play the Pittsburgh Penguins again!!! Last year we finished them really quickly, winning our two games in Boston and both games on the road to pass the round by 4-0......and it seemed that this year would finish the same way: we won both games in Boston (4-3 in OT and 3-2 in regulation) and also took the first game in Pittsburgh. So we were ahead 3-0, but I felt that something wasnt clicking!!!! And unfortunately I was right: we lost the next three games and the series was tied at 3!!! Game 7 was coming and we tried not to enter history the wrong way, but Crosby and Malkin finished our playoff hopes and we lost the game 4-2. IT WAS OVER!!! We had lost in the first round and the Pengs got their revenge from last years playoff defeat.

Then they went all the way into the Stanley Cup Finals were they met with the, again, surprisinly stong Nashville Predators, who entered the Western Conference as third seeded by winning their division, but only seventh in points.
It was a very good final and every game was very close, but at the end "The Kid", Malkin and SuperMario Lemieux could win game 7 and take the Stanley Cup home!!!
Sidney Crosby took home also the Art Ross Trophy for the playoffs MVP with 9 goals and 19 asists for 28 points in 23 playoff games. He had an average rating of 8,1 during that period.

In the yearly awards Martin St. Louis (Tampa Bay) was the big winner, picking up the Art Ross Trophy with (61 G + 75 A =) 136 Points and also the Hart as the leagues MVP. Wojtek Wolski from Colorado was the Calder winner with (31 G + 49 A=) 80 Points, while Martin Brodeur (NJ) defended his Vezina Trophy and Derek Morris (Colorado) won the Norris Trophy being the best defenseman with 16 goals and 55 asists for 71 points.
Sergei Samsonov rounded his excellent season out, winning the Lady Byng Trophy and was also voted Fans Player of the year by Bruins-fans.

It was time to look ahead to the draft and due to the trades in the regular season we had a total of 15 draft picks, so my scouts and I had a lot of work to do.

Atlanta took flashy Center Zach Hamill with the first pick, St. Louis selected C/LW Angelo Esposito while Detroit picked Right Defense Alex Grant with the nÂº 3 pick.
We picked with the nÂº 28: Right Defense Colby Cohen from the US Development Team.

Other notable players drafted by the Bruins:
Round 2 / nÂº 11: LD: Marc-Antoine Desnoyers, Montcon (QMJHL)
2/12: C/LW: Ryan Schnell, NTDP (USHL)
2/28: RW: Tomas Marcinko, Barrie (OHL)
3/15: RW: Petr Stefl, Pardubice (CZE)
3/27: LW: Ian Slater, MSU-Mankato (UCWE)

The second season was in the books and we had to look forward for the third one (who turned out to be the most successfull so far....). The board and the fans were happy with the two years of my work so far and I was also satisfied, but I wanted to took a step forward and build a team who could go deep in the playoffs, so a lot of work had to be done...

Season three coming soon!!! Stay tuned

......

Ok, I still hope that its not too boring to read!!! Probably tomorrow (or tonight if I can find the time) I will continue with the championship season!!!

Greets

Systemfel · Post by **Systemfel** » Fri Feb 24, 2006 5:51 pm

Wow, the Sedins seperated.

Post by **timmy_t** » Fri Feb 24, 2006 5:56 pm

In my Carolina game the Canooks waived Daniel. I keep trying to get Henrik but they won't budge...

bruins72 · Post by **bruins72** » Fri Feb 24, 2006 7:00 pm

Wasn't there somebody that argued on the SI forum that the game was totally unrealistic because it allowed the Sedin twins to be seperated? I love it!

Post by **timmy_t** » Fri Feb 24, 2006 7:24 pm

I was kind of encouraging him on the SI forum. It's ironic that I claimed Daniel and am trying to get them back together.

flea · Post by **flea** » Sat Feb 25, 2006 5:51 pm

Sometimes its quite surprising to see teams drop really good players to waivers!!! I was

when I saw Daniel Sedin in the waivers, so I claimed him and he became part of my team!!!

Here comes the review of my third season with the Bruins who was also my most successfull until now!!!

SEASON 2007-2008:

I was still a bit shocked after the first round loss to the Pengs and I realized that we needed more depth and even more scoring power to be successfull in the playoffs. Unfortunately we lost LW: Sergei Samosonov in the free agency. He was asking too much after his huge last season and a lot of teams were interesting in him. He left and signed a 2 year / 10,5 Million $ contract in Nashville.
Winds of changes were blowing in Beantown!!! Nobodys job was safe, excepting the core of the team who included Joe Thornton, Patrice Bergeron, Andrew Raycroft, Hannu Toivonen and most part of the defence like Nick Boynton, Mark Stuart, Filip Kuba, Radoslav Suchy and Andrew Alberts.

First moves on the free agency market were done and we signed some really significant players like:

C: David Legwand (former Nashville)
LW: Stanislav Chistov (former Anaheim)
LW: Marco Sturm (former San Jose)
RW: Michael Ryder (former Montreal)
RD/LD: Nolan Pratt (former Tampa Bay)

...of course, with signing all this players I had to do something to keep my roster costs under 39 Million, so we went on to do some trades. I was interesting in ship out big contracts and receive some young prospects or draft picks in return.

-LW: Daniel Sedin to Phoenix Coyotes for C: Wacey Rabbit and the 5th Round Draft Pick in 2008

-RD: David Tanabe to Florida Panthers for RD: Andrei Zubarev

-RW: Glen Murray and his 4,2 Million $ contract to Pittsburgh Penguins for RW: Colby Armstrong and RD/LD: George York (I did some research and his real name is Alex Goligoski...he turned out as an excellent rookie and was selected at the end of the season for the All-Rookies Team)

G: Pascal Leclaire to Ottawa Senators for RW/LW: Brandon Bochenski

With this moves and a lot of new players and hopes we started the season. The lines at the beginning of the season looked like this:

CHISTOV - THORNTON - BERGERON
STURM - LEGWAND - RYDER
VERMETTE - LOMBARDI - BOCHENSKI
YORK - BOYES - ARMSTRONG

KUBA - BOYNTON
ALBERTS - GEORGE YORK (aka ALEX GOLIGOSKI)
STUART - SUCHY

RAYCROFT - TOIVONEN

The beginning of the season was not bad, but we lost more games than in previous years due to a hard schedule. The defense was not bad and the Penalty Kill was one of the best in the league, but curiously the offense was not as good as I thought and we had to do some more changes!!

C: Matt Lombardi was not happy and wanted to be traded because I disciplined him after having a streak of 0 goals and 2 asists in 15 games!!!
C/LW: Mike York was also having a terrible year and I decided to search elswhere for goals.

So I did the following move in january 2008:

-RW/LW: Tom Konsorada and C: Matt Lombardi to Edmonton Oilers for C: Rob Schremp

-C/LW: Mike York to Phoenix Coyotes for LW/RW: Scottie Upshall and their next 4th Round draft pick

With the money we saved in shipping out this players we signed C:Radek Bonk and RW: Jere Lehtinen who surprisingly were still available on the free agency!!!

We had now a bigger rotation and the offense was getting better....also thanks to the fantastic season that the first line had!!! Chistov-Thornton-Bergeron turned out to be the most dangerous line in the league!!!
The team began to win again and at the end we finished 5th in the Eastern Conference, tied in points with the NY Rangers who finished 4th. The Ottawa Senators finished first in the East with 119 points. The Dallas Stars won again the Presidents Trophy with 120 points.
Here our team stats for the season 2007-2008:

BOSTON BRUINS SEASON 2007-2008: 53 - 24 - 5 -- 111 Pts. -- 355 GF, 275 GA - PP 22,83% PK 82,61%

At the end we finished with our record for most goals scored and least goals received. Also our PK was a new record (but I still have to improuve there!!!).

My first line finished in the top ten in scoring

and they were simply brilliant!!! Here a little overview:

C: Joe Thornton: 82 GP: 43 G + 88 A = 131 Pts./ +72 / Rat. 8,07
LW: Stanislav Chistov: 82 GP: 55 G + 75 A = 130 Pts./ +67 / Rat. 8,01
RW: Patrice Bergeron: 82 GP: 63 G + 53 A = 116 Pts./ +71 / Rat. 7,89
C: David Legwand: 82 GP: 17 G + 42 A = 59 Pts./ +2 / Rat. 7,41
LW: Marco Sturm: 63 GP: 17 G + 36 A = 53 Pts./ +2 / Rat. 7,48
RD/LD: George York: 70 GP: 12 G + 33 A = 45 Pts./ -6 / Rat. 7,48
RD: Nick Boynton: 77 GP: 10 G + 31 A = 41 Pts./ +16 / Rat. 7,48

The playoffs were next and we had to battle the NY Rangers without home court advantage!! But this changed quickly as we went on to win the first one in the Madison Square Garden. Finally it took 6 games to beat them by 4-2 and we moved on to take the Philadelphia Flyers, who finished second in the East with 112 points. We still had an open count with them, as they beat us in my first season with the Bruins!!!! And revenge was complete as we sweep the series 4-0!!! We moved on to the Eastern Final!!! There the Ottawa Senators were waiting for us and it looked like a very close series.
It turned out to be a great series as we won the first in Ottawa, lost the next two, tied the series again until we came to the seventh and final game: we won 5-2 in Ottawa with a great Patrice Bergeron, who had 2 goals and 1 asist.
WE REACHED THE STANLEY CUP FINALS!!!

There the sixt seeded Vancouver Canucks were our opponent. They had the second best offensive line in the league with NÃ¤slund-Morrison-Bertuzzi and it seemed to be a bombastic series!!!
We had the home court advantage because we finished 5th and they only 6th, so we won our first two games in Beantown 4-3 in Overtime and 6-3. We dropped the first in Vancouver 3-4, but came back in the fourth to beat them 4-3. It was 3-1 with the next game to be played in Boston, so everything was ready for the big championship party....but....we lost the game 4-6 and we had to travel to Vancouver. I hoped that the players would bounce back from that loss and they did!! We won game 6 by 5-2, taking a good lead early in the first period, so the Canucks never could come back.

NHL CHAMPIONS 2007-2008: BOSTON BRUINS!!!!

We did it!!! It was an incredible feeling to win it all and the town had a huuuuge party for about one week!!! Lord Stanley's Cup is back in Beantown!!!

After winning it all we all took a week off to celebrate this huge win!!!....including a trip to the White House to see the president of the US

It was time to enjoy the cup!!!!!!!!!!!

-------------------

Here I take a little break and I will resume the story with the postseason and the season trophys. I did some trades to obtain some draft picks, but thats in the next episode

Hope u guys still enjoy the read!!!

Post by **archibalduk** » Sat Feb 25, 2006 10:40 pm

Congrats

Nice to see that you've finally made it! Not only that, but you also manged to get Big Joe to score over 100 points.

You shipped out some pretty big players: Murray, Sedin and York. If you'd told me that earlier in the season then I'd have said you'd have no chance of getting the Cup!! I must take a look at Chistov - he had an impressive season. Shame to see Boyes still on the fourth line - hopefully when EHM 2007 comes out that'll be fixed

Keep the story coming

I've just started my Bruins game. Just been setting my lines and tactics. I played brilliantly for the first games of the NHL and then lost to the Pens. I don't know what it is about them, but I always, always lose against them

Mairosu · Post by **Mairosu** » Sun Feb 26, 2006 1:17 am

I am avoiding Sedins like the plague after my experience with one of them.

I should update my Rangers story. I gathered strength after the game crashed on me at the tail end of 7th season which I wound up replaying. Just as I won the Euro hockey tou r with Russia at that.

flea · Post by **flea** » Sun Feb 26, 2006 8:00 pm

archibalduk wrote:Congrats

Nice to see that you've finally made it! Not only that, but you also manged to get Big Joe to score over 100 points.

You shipped out some pretty big players: Murray, Sedin and York. If you'd told me that earlier in the season then I'd have said you'd have no chance of getting the Cup!! I must take a look at Chistov - he had an impressive season. Shame to see Boyes still on the fourth line - hopefully when EHM 2007 comes out that'll be fixed

Keep the story coming

I've just started my Bruins game. Just been setting my lines and tactics. I played brilliantly for the first games of the NHL and then lost to the Pens. I don't know what it is about them, but I always, always lose against them

Thanks very much Archi!!!

I knew that I was Joes last season with me, because I couldnt pay him what he was asking....and also Patrice was in his last year of contract and I focused on resigning him for less than Joe for about 6 to 7 millions....just glad Joe didnt get injured at the end of the season

Yeps, I knew that I was risking a lot by shipping out these guys!! But I wanted to get my team a bit younger, so I took the risk!!! Also I could sign some very good players on the free agency, so there was really no more space for them in the team!!
I tried for some games playing Brad in the second line, but his numbers are worse if hes playing 22 minutes than if he plays 12!!! So I keep him in the fourth or sometimes in the second line....just sad!! Hopefully they will fix it for the next game!!!

Chistov was absolutely BRILLIANT this season!!! Take a look on him!!!

Nice to hear u doing fine!!! Dont worry u will beat them sooner or later

flea · Post by **flea** » Sun Feb 26, 2006 11:34 pm

OK...its time to finish the 2007-2008 season!! As u remember I won the Stanley with the Bruins and now we are heading for the postseason...first the most important trophies:

Hart Trophy: Markus NÃ¤slund (Van)
Norris Trophy: Chris Pronger (Min)
Calder Trophy: Dave Henderson (NYI)
Vezina Trophy: Jean-Sebastian Giguere (Ana)
Conn Smythe Trophy: Patrice Bergeron (Bos)
Frank J. Selke Trophy: Dave Scatchard (Ana)
Lady Bing Trophy: Joe Sakic (Col)

Patrice did an excellent job in the playoffs, scoring 16 goals and asisting on other 16 for 32 points and a +18 in 23 playoff games. He had also a 8,09 Rating.

Now it was time to negotiate!!! Among the most important players in my team who would finish contract were Joe Thornton, Patrice Bergeron, Radek Bonk and Hannu Toivonen!!!
I had absolutely no interest in keeping Bonk so that was no problem. Hannu did accept my new contract offer and resigned without problem. But Joe and Patrice was another thing!! Joe wasnt interested in contract talks, but Patrice wanted to stay here in Boston, so I made him an offer: 11,5 millions for 3 years. I really wanted to made him an more extended contract, but he was not interested, but finally he accepted 3 years for 3,5 Mill.$ per year.
Joe was still not interested in resign, but I made him an offer paying him the same for next year, that would mean 6,75 Mill.$.....but he didnt accept. So I parked the matter, assuming that he would leave for the free agency.

Now the matter was draft: I would select with the last pick and it seemed that there werent much interesting players around...at least that was my opinion when I looked at the scouting.

Detroit choosed LW Patrice Cormier first, San Jose picked LW Petr Stefl from the Czech Republic and Carolina drafted offensive defenseman Drew Doughty in third place.
It was our turn and I couldnt believe that C Semen Bulavko was still available with the 30th pick. He was a center from Bielorussia who was ranked 15th in the preliminary rankings and was playing with Omsk last year. So it was clear that I would stick with him!!
Other of my picks were:

2/33: LW: Stu Case, Acadie-Bathust (QMJHL)
2/39: C: Roni Joona, HÃ¤meenlinna, FIN
2/60: C/RW: Ivan Muzik, Slovan, SVK
3/90: G: Jan Petr, Slavia Jr., CZE
4/93: RW: Ryan Baldwin, Sault-St.Marie (QMJHL)

Iam happy with my choices, specially with Bulavko, because my scouts talk pretty much good about him. Hopefully he will be a great player for us!!

All the free agency moves who would come after this draft in the next episode

Post by **archibalduk** » Mon Feb 27, 2006 9:17 pm