I learned at a young and impressionable age that there’s such a thing as pregame disappointment.
It’d hit you on the tedious subway ride in, follow you to your cheaper-than-face-value nosebleed seats, and sit with you throughout the entire pregame skate. The starting lineups would come and go, you’d sit back with your bundle of snacks that cost too much, and then the
actual disappointment would hit for the next 60 -- or 65 if you were lucky -- minutes of on-ice play. You knew that a calamity was about to consume your world for the next two and a half hours, and that you’d likely exit a building to tell the local vagabonds that, “Yeah, they lost again.”
Slogans couldn’t hide it. A “We can do this!” pump-up video couldn’t mask it, and the throngs of empty seats around you sure as hell couldn’t keep your frustrations at bay.
Boston, a once beloved hockey town, lost its way.
Perceived faces of the franchise -- most notably, leaders
Joe Thornton and
Sergei Samsonov -- were exiled out to the greener pastures of the Western Conference for spare parts and maybes. Your once capable franchise goaltender,
Andrew Raycroft, was a shadow of himself after a lockout-long sabbatical from any sort of gameplay, a cadaver formerly known as
Brian Leetch was logging top-four minutes, and the Bruins were the biggest abomination in a sports-crazed city.
A desolate wasteland if there ever was one, the franchise seemed like
Patrice Bergeron and Bergeron’s alone to save. Not by choice, but by Boston seeming like the NHL’s equivalent of an abandoned mining town for any marquee free agent. The problems within the Black-and-Gold weren’t ones that could be solved overnight, and a player would seemingly be a moron to commit to digging his hands into the task of fixing the severely fractured franchise on Causeway Street. But for the B’s, along with the 6-foot-9
Zdeno Chara, the franchise found a doctor by the name of
Marc Savard.
An undeniable afterthought given the looming presence of Chara, both in a literal and figurative sense, Savard’s four-year, $20 million pact with the club wasted no time in proving to be one of the franchise’s most valuable and underplayed investments.
Checking in with a career-high 74 assists in his first season donning the Spoked-B, Savard’s production with linemates such as
P.J “Defense First” Axelsson and the aging-and-forever-aching
Glen Murray went under the radar, and a coaching change in ‘07 saw Savard work his way to his first All-Star appearance, and finish third in the entire league in dishes with 63, behind just Detroit’s
Pavel Datsyuk and yes, Joe Thornton. Yet, while the numbers were something to hang your cap on, it was Savard’s ability to emerge as one of the club’s bona fide leaders that turned the heads of resurfacing hockey-heads ‘round the city.
Despite skating with an edge that set some off, with Savard averaging almost a penalty minute a game in his first two years under Claude Julien’s discipline-based system, Savard frequently donned the ‘A’ on his sweater, and became one of the Bruins’ money players.
With Boston down to Montreal two games to none in the club’s first post-lockout playoff appearance, Savard’s first taste of NHL playoff success came with a Garden-erupting overtime goal in Game 3. Finishing with six points in Boston’s seven-game series loss, it was the beginning of Savard’s turn towards becoming the Black-and-Gold’s number one offensive weapon. Connecting with budding superstars
Milan Lucic and
Phil Kessel for a Bruins-career best 25 goals along with another 63-assist year in 2008-09, the trio formed what’s seemingly the most powerful top-line Boston’s seen throughout the near half-decade era of Julien hockey. And in the playoffs, it was more of the same from Savard, who tallied 13 points in just 11 contests as Boston succumbed to a second-round bowout to the Carolina Hurricanes.
Skating as the undeniable focal point of the B’s attack the next year, injuries (a broken foot and sprained knee) slowed Savard down, but it was a knockout blow from Pittsburgh’s
Matt Cooke that’d forever change the status of No. 91’s career.
Absolutely plastered on a blindside hit -- unpenalized on the ice and then dismissed as ‘clean’ by the NHL’s
Colin Campbell, letting Cooke skate free -- a return to ‘form’ by the second round against Philadelphia let Savard return as the hero with his second playoff overtime goal, giving the B’s a 1-0 series lead.
However, as the dust cleared on Boston’s celebration, ultimately ending in Game 7 misery that saw Philly overcome an 0-3 series deficit, something was off about the beloved playmaker. Winded, fatigue, and flat out sickly looking, it was clear that Savard wasn’t “himself.” On a Bruins squad damn near killed due to their offensive ineptitude, Savard felt the need to rush back, and wasn’t stopped. Clearing the tests in his way, the Bruins needed him, and Savard answered the bell, for better or worse.
Sadly, as we all witnessed, it was undoubtedly for the latter.
Sitting out the first 23 games of the 2010-11 campaign with post-concussion symptoms, it was a shell-of-himself Savard that’d return to the ice to a standing ovation. Appreciating the effort of a player whose heart was unfairly questioned, whose contractual status with the club always led to pipedream trade scenarios by armchair general managers, and whose career was headlined by being under-appreciated by every crowd he played for.
We watched with bated breath as each hit could’ve been “it” for Savard’s career, and as the struggles amounted to just 10 points in 25 games, it would be a seemingly innocent hit from former Bruin teammate
Matt Hunwick that’d leave Savard in a heap in the corner. Covering his face with a towel, frustrated and perhaps shocked as he skated off, barely under his own power, it didn’t seem like it, but it would turn out to be the last we’d see of Marc Savard, the elite playmaker, the unselfish teammate, cog of returning Boston to the forefront of the Boston sports scene, and player forced to watch his teammates win the Stanley Cup five months later from his home in Ontario, on the ice.
That, believe it or not, was 21 months ago, and it doesn’t appear that anything regarding his day-to-day health is going to change anytime soon, making a return to the game he’s devoted his life to seem like nothing more than a fantasy.
“I tried to workout today with my trainer I felt like crap but I need to do it,” Savard said in a tweet (@MSavvy91) yesterday. “For the fans that keep asking there is no comeback in the foreseeable future I miss the game it has given me everything I have today.”
“Trust me I will give back to the game kids hockey, OHL hockey, [hashtag]illbeback,” Savard added, before closing his four-tweet insight with some upsetting but not surprising news. “I do in fact hope there is still a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel to play but that rest on the doctor shoulders so far [hashtag]nochance.”
The Marc Savard story can be described by a plethora of words, but the word ‘tragic’ just seems to stick out stronger than everything else. Savard’s road, one of many triumphs and just as many knockouts, isn’t something that should go down as a footnote when analyzing this era of B’s hockey.
Essentially, I don’t think that Savard’s impact on the club was ever really appreciated to the degree that it should’ve been -- and as I write this, I can’t help but notice that the option to go with a picture labeled ‘BOS-Savard’ has been removed by HockeyBuzz.
Savard, basically, has been forgotten by most.
Deemed a mercenary, a part that the Bruins could “win without entirely,” the harsh reality for Savard’s doubters has to come with the admittance that he’s sat as an irreplaceable presence in the Bruins’ lineup for two whole seasons now.
The obvious, of course, is headlined by a power-play that’s teetered on utter irrelevancy since Savard’s injury. Without a real power-play quarterback to work the half-wall like the surgeon Savard was, the Bruins have gone through the past two postseasons with a repugnant 10.8 power-play percentage, connecting on just 12 of 111 trips to the man-advantage. This is compared to a modest 14.6 power-play percentage in the playoffs from ‘08 to ‘10, which saw Savard and company convert on 14 of 96 opportunities.
Yet, aside from the obvious special teams woes the B’s have gone through for two seasons now, the pre-Cooke Savard was an absolute killer (in the good way of course) for the Boston Bruins, and his contributions indisputably mattered for the club. From his signing in ‘06 to the infamous hit, the Black-and-Gold were a staggering 110-54-19 when No. 91 finished a game with at least one point, good for a stellar 65.3 point percentage, compared to a mild 57-64-23 (47.5 point percentage) record when Savard was held off the score-sheet or didn’t play due to injury.
On Boston’s books, and more likely their long-term injured reserve, ‘til the summer of 2017 with a cap-hit a hair above $4 million, it’s a shame that we’re not going to see Savard suit up for the Black-and-Gold any time soon, but it’s an even greater shame that most of us aren’t going to ever have a deeper appreciation for the days that we could.
Tuukka Rask leaves game with apparent groin injury
Hey, that sounds familiar!
On the heels of being handed the keys to the Bruins' crease,
Tuukka Rask's trek to the Czech League on a lockout contract to stay in game-shape has come to a potentially abrupt end. Suiting up as one of HC Plzen's welcomed stars on this young campaign, the 25-year-old Rask was forced out of today's contest with an apparent groin injury.
Leaving after a first period that saw the Finnish-born netminder stop all 10 shots thrown his way, Rask's stat-line includes a .935 save-percentage and 1.85 goals-against-average in just eight appearances on the year.
This, less than a year removed from Rask's season-ending groin injury, comes as an unwanted blow to a B's club that's already slated to enter the year without the services of the four-time 30-game winning
Tim Thomas.
While there's no news on the severity of the issue, the good news is that the injury doesn't appear to get in the way of NHL hockey any time soon, as the NHLPA and NHL continue to argue over who can pee highest and farthest. Good job, guys.
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