“Punch me, Guido! Punch me in the face! This is the most glorious day of my life!“

Ok, well yes, I stole a quote from Cars. Cheesy? I think not, if you use it to describe Saturday’s contest versus Calgary. It sure felt like the most glorious day of my life, and for sure, the most glorious all season.

This game sums up every single way Boston Bruin hockey is meant to and should be played. Absolute domination in all facets of the game. A struggling powerplay saw changes to both units and boy did those changes make a difference. Pulling Satan and Ryder from the man advantages was pivotal. Ryder has got to go, he’s rust on the frame of this team and keeps eating away at it. Clearly, the Bruins sent a message Saturday that they are not going away.

Now to the bad news:

1. Philadelphia won yesterday leapfrogging both Boston and Montreal. So tonight’s game versus Buffalo is equally as important as previous games vs. the Rangers and Thrashers.
2. We don’t have Savard. Can the Bruins follow up Saturday’s game with an equal effort tonight at the Garden LIVE on VersusHD? (I believe they can)
3. Unless Philly and Montreal drop their game a bit here, the Bruins are looking at a seventh or eighth seed. At least we make it right? But these seeds mean two things. 1) A game with the Caps, or 2) a game with the Pens. Neither contest is one I would want. Lets shoot for the sixth seed and Buffalo, eh?

Good News:

1. Milan being Milan. Yes, finally, Looch is himself. Skating better and with more purpose than he did all season. Thunderous hits are rocking my surround sound once again.
2. Sobotka. Man this guy has been huge. Bringing spark and grit on a consistent basis. This guy wants a permanent job with the big club. Give it to him!
3. Mark Recchi. This guy is who every young player should strive to mimic. This guy has been nothing short of amazing all season.
4. Daniel Paille, or to me and my friends, Pie-YAY. All YAY with this guy. Pivotal on the PK. A huge addition and the Bruins would not be the best PK in the league without him.
5. Captain Zdeno! Showing us why he wears the “C”. Leadership, fight, and emotion.

Keep it up men, we’re in the mix! Remember last year, use that as fuel.

Enjoy the Bruins, they’re the only Bruins we’ve got!

The crowd was a little uneasy at first, as expected after a lack-luster and heartless game against Pittsburgh last week, but boy things got fired up when Steve Begin dropped the gloves to fight Brandon Prust. Begin, a resident angry-man, has been relatively quiet as of late, but let me tell you, people were talking about Begin after this Sunday afternoon.

A fisticuffs and an open-ice body check, which sent Vinny Prospal dominoing into Marian Gaborik and onto his backside, really set the tone for this game. Prospal’s boarding call on Mark Stuart was the turning point for me. Bruins players wasted no time and got in the guys face. I feared the worst for Stuart, someone who has brought grit and energy to his game for much of the time he’s been on the ice.

Now listen, this is one game, and one should fear whether or not the Bruins can make this type of play a habit for the last stretch of games here. I have hope, the Bruins were an eight seed in 2008 and nearly shocked the one seed Canadiens in the first round, planting the seed for the ’09 season, which was the best in my 25 years of existence.

A huge game coming up with Atlanta on Tuesday night is waiting in the wings. The Thrashers are one point back but the Bruins do have a game at hand. Who cares? Win this game and set an example.

And don’t forget to check out “On the Ice with the 4SportBoston Podcast” after the game!

In the words of Mr. President in Independence Day, “We will not go quietly into the night! We will not vanish without a fight! We’re going to live on! We’re going to survive!…”

That’s all for this week. GO BRUINS!

So I write to you in the midst of the Olympic Break. Many of our beloved Bruins are competing for their home countries and I sincerely hope they stay healthy, to me, a Stanley Cup speaks more than a gold medal. The B’s are coming to this break HOT. A four-game winning streak kinda hot! To think we would be at this point after a 10-game losing streak is nothing short of amazing.

From twelfth to seventh in a matter of hours… much like Dale Jr.’s push from tenth to second in one lap in this years Daytona 500.

What exactly has sparked this streak? Confidence, Tuuuuuuuukka, and grit! Watching McQuaid drop the gloves and rockem sockem robot Florida’s Oreskovich was inspiring. Finally winning in a shootout brought tears of joy to my eyes. Watching the Bruins pick apart Tampa to a 4-0 first period lead had me seeing visions of last season. Pure domination, until the defense got a little Swiss cheesy.

Tuukka Rask has been sharp when he has needed to be, minus that little hiccup in Tampa. He gave the team every opportunity to win each of these four games.

Which game was bigger? Boy, beating Montreal speaks loudly among T rides. But let me tell you, Montreal isn’t number one in the division, so, the win in Buffalo over arguably the best goalie in the NHL this year was much more meaningful. Shall I remind you of some points to how we were to exit that losing streak:

1. Intensity
2. Fight
3. Keep the team intact

I have seen an increase in Intensity and Fight during the past four games and its very promising. Peter Chirielli did the right thing by not dealing anyone. The best way to fix the problem was to allow the team to do it. That brings confidence amongst players, and shows the true colors of a TEAM and not a show run by one or two players. The concept of TEAM seems to be common amongst all Boston sports teams. Truly makes for excitement.

Lucic and Chara have picked up their physical game and I’m finally seeing some grit from Michael Ryder. Ryder is nasty good when he’s firing on all cylinders. It will be interesting to see how our Olympians are mentally and physically come March 2nd. I’m confident yet nervous. We don’t need our Olympians pulling a Dice-K on us.

In conclusion I would like to make a shout-out to my friend and current USA Women’s Hockey defense-woman Kacey Bellamy. She resides in my hometown of Westfield, MA and everyone is pulling for you Kacey. I remember playing Little League Baseball against Kacey years ago and she was the only girl in the league, this was before they started Little League Softball. Pitching to a girl was always a little different, but this woman was born an athlete. She comes from an extremely athletic family. Her older brother Rob is a Right Wing for the Philadelphia Flyers AHL team, the Adirondack Phantoms and was drafted by the Flyers before he even started college. Both Bellamy’s played Division 1 college hockey, Rob for Maine and Kacey for New Hampshire. I personally wish both Kacey and Rob luck in their quests for greatness. To everyone back home here, you two are already great. Keep it up guys!

I’ll be back this coming weekend for another installment of Bovino’s Buzz.

“For Andy Brickley, Naoko Funayama and our NESN HD production crew, I’m Jack Edwards saying so long from TD Garden.”

It is clear to me that this team only 50 percent cares. Now, with that said, recently the Bruins have shown some signs of life…outshooting the last three opponents by a very hefty margain. Unfortunately, those three games have been losses. The Bruins lose in the third period more often than not.

The Pats and Sox are known for late game comebacks, the Bruins, late game spontaneous combustion.

Today’s game versus the Vancouver Canucks will prove to be the first game out of the next five that are going to be a real challenge. Vancouver is HOT and they skate extremely well. From a fan perspective, here’s a list of what I think would fix this team.

1. Keep the core players intact.
2. DO NOT trade anyone but Wideman and Ryder.
3. Somebody slap Lucic…it’s like he’s in LALA land…hit somebody… f*@#!!!
4. Play Shawn Thornton and sit Bitz. Thornton is a bigger threat both offensively and fisticuffly (is that even a word? haha).
5. Someone snap Chara’s pinkie back into place so he can drop someone the right way.
6. Take all the season tickets away from the rich turkeys and give them to fans who actually want to cheer for their team and not sit in the first 8 rows talking business.
7. Hold a team meeting WITH FANS. Fill the Garden with 17,000 of the biggest Bruins fans and let them ask the team questions…give them suggestions…encourage them….some teams have such a huge relationship with their fanbase…I think this would pull everyone together. Personally, I’d ask Wideman and Ryder why they aren’t playing harder.
8. And finally number eight. The number of spokes in the B.  The number of wins I’d like to see in a row. The number of hits Lucic should have today. The number of goals I want in the net for the Bruins. Period.

Friday, 7:30pm – TD Garden

(Photo by Elsa/Getty Images)

The men who wear the Spoked B sweaters have had a few days, for the awful play of late, to sit and let it fester in their minds. Friday night is when the Bruins travel to Buffalo to meet the Buffalo Sabres who hold the Northeast Division’s number one spot.

This game is HUGE for the Black and Gold. But we as fans, do not pay hard earned money to go to a game and set aside three hours of our night to watch a team do well for just one night. We are looking for a 60 minute, rough, tough, gritty, physical, intense, energetic, 400 percent effort from the entire team, every game night. Lately, Bruins analysts have been bouncing with the question, “Is this game a must win, is that game a must win?”. Well, this absolutely is a must win, no ifs, ands, or buts about it.

The Sabres come into this game sporting a 4-3-3 in their last 10 and are coming off of an SO win against the New Jersey Devils. Clearly not the hottest team in the division, but a far cry better than the Bruins have been. Gleaming number one with 69 points (15 more than Boston), Buffalo looks to add more weight to an already sinking Bruins season.

Someone pointed out to me that maybe this season is a tactic by upper management to solidify the chances for a franchise player to wear a Bruins sweater next year as result of a high draft pick. Frankly, to me, that is not the task at hand, the task is to win, win a lot, win big, and climb back into the top eight.

The Bruins need to, and I stress, NEED TO, watch tape from last season, and bring that kind of game-play back or they will be battling Toronto for those picks after all. This kind of season also tends to filter out the bandwagon fans from the diehards. True Bruin fans feel as I do about the effort as of late, but remain hopeful that this team can straighten out and be a playoff menace.

Son of a Bitz and Savvy (Marc Savard) should dress for Friday’s game. This is the best news for this team in a long time. Marco Sturm and Steve Begin look likely to return some point next week or sooner depending on how their practices go.

Lets keep these returning players healthy, if we lose another key player, that may start putting nails in the coffin for this season.

Believe in Boston!

• Be sure to check out the first hour of last night’s 4SB Podcast for seriously GREAT Bruins talk from some of the best Bruins blogs in Boston as headed by our own B’s guru, Chas.

(AP Photo/Gerry Broome)

The smack has certainly been laid down on our beloved Black and Gold as of late. Losing 5-1 against the worst hockey team in the NHL Sunday should be a swift stick to the face. But will it be? The first nine minutes of the game vs. the Carolina Hurricanes showed some promise, but lacked something still. Let’s take a look at the word BRUIN for a second.

The letter B… Bad. The outside of the Garden decorated in “The Big and Bad are Back”. Really? Where? Not on Causeway St.. Not anywhere.

The letter R… Ruthless. Last year, teams cringed in the face when they saw “@ Boston” on their schedule. Especially Montreal. Teams were terrified to play Boston. Seems to me that this year, teams come in with a compete level that of a confident squad. We can’t have that! The fighting is almost a non-factor. Hits are down significantly from last year. Three men on the Bruins have what it takes to save this category: Shawn Thornton, Zdeno Chara and Milan Lucic. These three need to step up the rough and tough factor big time!

The letter U… Urgency. I see none! Last year there was a “bee in everyones bonnet”! The Bruins skated with purpose and one goal was never enough. Results are more positive than not when hockey is played with urgency.

(AP Photo/Gerry Broome)

The letter I… Intensity. This word is obviously not in the dictionary of any Bruin at the current time. I’ve seen consistent intensity from four players: Patrice Bergeron, Daniel Paille, Steve Begin and Vladimir Sobotka. Something is wrong with that. While I’m certainly not complaining that these four players are giving it their all, I am complaining that I expected this level of intensity from EVERYONE who laces up skates and takes the ice. Two of these players weren’t even Bruins last year, and one was a baby Bruin. Bruins intensity right now = non-existent.

The letter N… DeNNis WidemaN. Dennis has certainly been a menace this year. Sporting a -12, the worst on the team, many of the goals against have been a direct result of a mis-play by a player who is supposidly known for his offensive presence as a D-man. You talk about a player in need of a reboot, Wides is that player. Coach Claude Julien let Wideman have it, and I’m sincerely hoping he turns it around or I will be begging he get delt before the trade deadline in March. Netminding, great at times, terrible at others. Tim Thomas and Tuuka Rask have looked lost on too many occasions this year and teams are really making them pay.

(AP Photo/Gerry Broome)

What does it mean to wear the spoked B? It means bringing Blackhawk, Capital and Penguin-like intensity to 60 minutes of every game, not in spurts.

Can the Bruins turn it around? Sure they can. But it’s going to take 400% from every skater every night and it all starts vs. Buffalo.

That is all for now…check back Thursday for a preview of the Bruins/Sabres matchup!

“Holy $#*@, where’s the tylenol?!”