Blake Wheeler

Following a shootout loss to the Islanders, Winnipeg Jets goalie Ondrej Pavelec called out his teammates in a postgame press conference. He was unhappy with the play of his team, especially in the offensive zone.

It seemed to have worked.

This week, the Boston Bruins had their ups, downs and some serious changes.

While the week started fairly sour, the ending was...productive to say the least.

Games

The Detroit Red Wings picked up where they left off and swept the Bruins on a home-at-home series.  While the defeat was not nearly as ugly as the one in Boston, changes were coming.

Rumor has it that Kaberle will only lift his no-trade clause to the Boston Bruins.

It’s no secret that Toronto and Boston’s GM & Assistant GM were in talks during Tuesday nights game between the Leafs & the Bruins.

Speculation is rampant as to what the trade would bring Toronto if such a scenario would happen.

Despite the Calgary Flames impressive weekend of back-to-back wins over the Dallas Stars and Vancouver Canucks, they still sit 14th in the Western Conference.

The Flames are the second oldest team in the league this season, behind only the Red Wings, with an average age of 29.7. Mikael Backlund is the only player on an entry level contract, and the only regular under 26.

Adding to their woes is the severe lack of high end prospects. HockeysFuture.com ranks the Flames dead last in the league for quality of prospects.

The Boston Bruins came off a win off the Hot Atlanta Thrashers and got a nice three-day break to travel and take on the Florida Panthers.

The Bruins have won the previous two meetings thus far and were looking to keep that record going.

First Period

No scoring.

Second Period

As all Leaf fans well know, the club is struggling to find consistent offence from their forwards. In a last ditch attempt to bring in some much needed offence, Brian Burke and company decided that calling up top end prospect Nazem Kadri was the way to go.

Many critics can spend hours debating whether it was really the correct time to bring up Kadri, but what's done is done.

Much has been made of the two new trade offers the Toronto Maple Leafs received this week, which Leafs general manager Brian Burke described as "solid hits."

Many people have been speculating as to who is involved in this offers; is it Tomas Kaberle? Francois Beauchemin? Mikhail Grabovksi? Another questions is which team; Boston? New Jersey?

A 4-2 start in the NHL is always a good start, but the way the Bruins did it is really surprising and actually has me really excited to be a Bruins fan this year. 

"Back-up" goalie Tim Thomas is 4-0 for the Bruins, while the hottest goalie in the league in last year's playoffs, Tuukka Rask, is 0-2 to start the year.

Zach Bogosian — Bogosian made the Thrashers in his draft year. He went pointless in his first eight games before a broken leg forced him to miss 28 games. Bogosian came back from that injury and finished the season with nine goals, 19 points and a +14 rating in the final 38 games.

After such a strong finish, the Thrashers were counting on Bogosian to take his game to the next level. Unfortunately, he was hit by the jinx, scoring only 10 goals and totaling 23 points and a -18 rating over 81 games.

With the Arbitration ruling handed down, the Boston Bruins agreed to the decision, and Blake Wheeler is off the Free Agency market reporting a $2.2 million dollar 1-year contract.

The 6 foot 5, 208 pounder of Robbinsdale,MN had a somewhat disappointing season last year, but most of the Bruins' roster were also in the same boat.  

Still, he did not do that bad considering it was just his second year in the NHL with 18 tallies , and 20 helpers for 38 points.  It certainly doesn't hurt to have played all 82 games in the season as well.