Boston Bruins' Future Looks as Bright as the Past

It’s funny you know, how history repeats itself.

I was just listening to the local Toronto alternative rock station and they had an interview with Justin Pogge.

You know, the same Justin Pogge the Leafs decided to keep.

You know, the reason that we Bruins fans are now so excited about Tuukka Rask and not Justin Pogge. (Boston requested either/or in the Andrew Raycroft trade.)

I only mention this because one of the on air personalities referred to how skinny Pogge was, at 6'3" and 190 pounds. His counterpart more directly said, “Yeah we’ve got to get you on that Tim Thomas diet.”

Now normally this banter would’ve only mildly amused, but Pogge's response started a snowball of thoughts in my head that I just had to get out. His answer, “Yeah, that guy is like a Ninja Turtle.”

Now first, what the heck does an off-the-cuff comedic statement about a 22-year old AHL goalie and a Saturday morning kids cartoon that ran from 1986 through 1996 have to do with the Bruins starting netminder? Other than the obvious parallels like when Thomas spins on his back, I could occasionally mistake him for Michelangelo?

Well, I got to thinking—I know, a dangerous process in and of itself.

Let’s start here: How good were those Bruins teams from ’86 to ’96?

Well in the '86-87 season Bruins lost in the first round of the playoffs. Not surprising as we tend to do that a lot. But the following year we marched all the way to the Finals.

That run to the Finals started a series of the most beloved and heart breaking Bruins teams in memory. We against lost in the Finals in 1990. We managed heart breaking loses in the conference finals in 1989, 1991 and 1992. Every year from 1986 to 1996 we made the playoffs, and on six separate occasions managed to go more than one round.

So what am I saying? Bring back the Ninja Turtles? Well they did, in 2003 and are currently working on there seventh season, so that’s not the answer.

But let’s look at Tim Thomas and throw him into the “which NHL player does he remind you of” machine? Could it be the dough-shaped Andy Moog? Let me explain.

Moog wasn’t pretty, he just won. He split starts for most of career, he was too short, too fat, and at the end of the day for all the complaints he was a winner. He was a starting goalie in the NHL and lost his job to the flashy first-round pick Grant Fuhr.

Although not quite the journeyman that Thomas was, Moog was in Edmonton for three Stanley Cups. In those three years he played, 38, 39 and 46 games. He put together a record of 77-28-7 over that span.

Over 47 games in the 1985-1986 season, he was 27-9-7. So in those four years, his winning percentage was 0.675, and by 1987-1988 he found himself on the Canadian National Team. He played 31 games, then headed back to the NHL to split starts with Reggie Lemelin.

Is this the same story as Tim Thomas’ journey through Europe, the AHL, IHL and ECHL? No, but I hope you are getting some of the parallels of disrespect.

Has Thomas carried us to the Promised Land yet? Unfortunately not, but under the steerage of Moog we saw three conference finals, and two Cup finals. Thomas sure looks like he has that kind performance in him.

Lets again get in the way back machine for a minute. Wasn’t our first line during those years a tough, rugged goal scorer and a savvy, play-making center? We’ve all heard the Lucic and Cam Neely comparisons. But what about Marc Savard and his doppelganger—his ghost from the past, if you will?

It doesn’t take too long to look into those teams and find one of the greatest assist men of all time. I present to you Adam Oates—1420 career points, 1079 of them assists. Before Oates it was Craig Janney having 100-plus-point seasons feeding the puck on to the tape of the goal scoring monster.

If this is true, then Chara must be Raymond Bourque, a power-play quarterback that longs an inhuman amount of minutes every night. Again, do they play exactly the same way? No, but both today’s Norris Candidate and the multiple Norris winner of yesteryear (all 5 were won between the years 1986 and 1996) do fill the same need for a stud anchoring the blue.

It’s also strikingly similar the balance of talent behind the big men. Hagwood, Wesley, and Galley managed to put in 38, 36, 35 points respectively from the back end. This year's version boasts Wideman, Hunwick, and—although hurt for most of the season so far—Andrew Ference supplying secondary firepower from the back end.

Then again, how far is Shawn Thornton from being Lyndon Byers?

So what am I saying? Well guys, what I am saying is just like Turtle soup, there is a recipe for success, and I think that Chef Chiarelli has put the right ingredients in the pot.

Now let's see if they can cook up something worthy of being served from Lord Stanley’s Mug.

That would be pretty radical, if I do say so myself!