I was in the shower this morning...

...thinking about why exactly Chuck Kobasew decided to get cute on a four man rush in overtime, and didn't just throw the puck on net. Then I remembered that Kobasew had a great game seven, and his line with Bergeron and Recchi did great work for us down the stretch.

Then I thought for a while about how the power play didn't click last night, and wondered for a while how it was that it was so dominant against the Canadiens, and not as much against the Canes. Then I shampooed. I wondered if the turning point for the Canes was that shorthanded goal they scored earlier in the series, not as much from a momentum perspective, but from the perspective of putting a seed of doubt in the heads of the Bruins power play, and how that might have been a factor in the misfires with the man advantage in game seven.

Then I thought about the fact that I'm 35 years old, and will be having my first kid in five weeks, and whether the Bruins actually did me some kind of favor by losing, as I can now focus more entirely on getting ready for the responsibility of parenting. That made me think about back when I was in college, and thought for a second about how the Bruins missed the playoffs for the first time in 20 something years, and started to suck really hard, and shipped Ray Bourque out of town, and I wondered if the Bruins were deciding to suck so I could better concentrate on my studies. Then I thought about the time the Bruins completely melted down, traded Joe Thornton for less than what he was worth, and how at that time how I wondered if the Bruins were actually doing me a solid, because I'd have more time to focus on my writing.

Then I thought "Hey Bruins- enough with the fucking favors!"

Damnit.

Then I wondered how many years Tim Thomas has left, and got silently mad at something I read on the puck daddy blog about how Thomas will never win an overtime series. I'm not quite sure how you can take a guy whose unconventional style made him the best goaltender all year, and somehow blame that that style on the Bruins playoff loss. You dance with the girl who brought you, and Tim Thomas was fantastic all year. You can generically criticize Thomas for his rebound control, I guess, but he'd punched out several rebounds earlier in the overtime, and handled them brilliantly. That Walker rebound wasn't some platter that got coughed out into the slot. The guy went hard to the net and batted it right out of the air.

Then I washed the shampoo out of my hair.

Ultimately, the Boston Bruins came into this season a young hungry team who in the previous year's playoffs, battled back from a 3-1 deficit only to lose in game seven of the first round. This season, they took that feeling, blasted through the first half of the season like a team possessed, grappled with trying to maintain their urgency when the playoffs were a certainty, and battled back from a 3-1 deficit to lose in game seven in the SECOND round.

So you know, that's progress, right?

On the bright side, this could mean tickets to the Winter Classic at Fenway next might be slightly more attainable.

Goddamn it, Bruins.

I guess I'm a Blackhawks fan now.

Anybody know how to spell Bufuglien?