Mike Miccoli

Mike Miccoli covers the Boston Bruins for The Hockey Writers and has been a credentialed member of the media for all Bruins' home games for the past five years. As a former player, coach and official, Miccoli has been around the game of hockey since the age of three. Along with his work on THW, Miccoli has also been published in the New England Hockey Journal, Improper Bostonian magazine and on BostInno.

Boston Bruins: Which Young Gun Cracks the Lineup?

While speculation runs wild on the status of a 2012-13 NHL season, one of the more interesting developments in Boston comes down to the Bruins’ openings on the forwards’ depth chart.

With all of the lines intact as they were last year and the assumed return of right-winger Nathan Horton, a vacancy opens up on the Bruins’ third line. The departures of Benoit Pouliot, who was traded to Tampa Bay in the offseason where he signed a one-year, $1.8 million deal, and Brian Rolston, who remains an unsigned free agent, open a spot on the left-side of Chris Kelly and opposite of right winger Rich Peverley on the team’s third line. While the expectation is that Jordan Caron reclaims the gig once again, the deep group of forwards with Boston’s AHL-affiliate Providence Bruins present some interesting options

Looking Ahead: Five Must-See Home Games for the Providence Bruins

The second week of October usually signals the beginning of the NHL season but instead, it’s the American Hockey League that has the spotlight. The NHL lockout has forced numerous players to find a new rink to skate in overseas while others have migrated down to the AHL.

While the Providence Bruins may not play stacked, lockout-saturated teams such as the Oklahoma City Barons or Toronto Marlies, there are plenty of key games where fans will get to witness NHL-talent on the AHL-level. Plus, it’s professional hockey, automatically giving the AHL an advantage over the NHL…for now. Here are some key P-Bruins home games for the 2012-13 season.

Could a Shortened NHL Season Benefit the Boston Bruins?

On Thursday, NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman explained that the league and its owners would be prepared to lockout its players if a new Collective Bargaining Agreement wasn’t settled upon by September 15. Considering just how far apart the two sides are currently, it seems likely that a lockout—yes, another one—is looming. While it may not have the same implications or length as the last NHL lockout during the 2004-05 season, the effects could still be devastating…at least for the most part.

It’s not farfetched to believe that teams will suffer if there is a shortened NHL season, but could there be some teams that would benefit from one? Possibly—and the Boston Bruins might be one of those teams.

Is Tuukka Rask ready to be the Boston Bruins starting goaltender?

It’s officially Tuukka’s team–for now, anyways.

The Boston Bruins re-signed Tuukka Rask to a one-year, $3.5 million deal making him, officially, the team’s starting goaltender for the 2012-13 season. Rask, a restricted free agent, gets a significant raise from last season’s $1.5 million salary.

It’s a curious agreement, at first glance. Rask has been aptly-named the goaltender of the future for the Bruins since he was acquired from the Toronto Maple Leafs for Andrew Raycroft back on June 24, 2006. The once-highly touted prospect has had to deal with Tim Thomas’ brilliance in net as well as injuries over the past two seasons. Now that he’s healthy and Thomas is out of the picture, it seems as if the starter’s role is Rask’s to lose.

So, why the short-term deal?

Defining Tim Thomas’ legacy with the Boston Bruins

I didn’t want to write about Tim Thomas today. Or yesterday. Or even tomorrow.

But when Peter Chiarelli confirmed today that Thomas’ agent approached him in the beginning of May suggesting that the Bruins goaltender was considering sitting out the 2012-13 season, something had to be said.

Just a year ago, Thomas was the biggest story in hockey–maybe even one of the biggest stories in sports. He capped off an unbelievable 2010-11 season by winning the Stanley Cup, the Conn Smythe and the Vezina Trophy, all within a week of one another. Thomas was on top of the hockey world, and why not? The 38-year old, Michigan native had reached what would be the pinnacle of his career.

Only one place to go from there, you know.

Five free agent forwards that the Boston Bruins should target

The Boston Bruins’ breakup day came approximately six weeks earlier than it did the season before. During the day’s interviews and meetings, Bruins general manager Peter Chiarelli indicated that while he didn’t foresee any major changes, he would like to “add some pieces.” The Bruins will need bottom-six players with one or two to have the potential to move into the top-six group, if necessary. With the current situation as is for the Bruins, here’s a look at five free agent forwards that the Bruins should target.

Closing the book on the 2011-12 Boston Bruins

Last year, I drove from Boston to Rhode Island to watch both the Eastern Conference Final and the Stanley Cup Final Game 7s. I figured that if I had the chance to watch my favorite team growing up win a championship, I would want to witness it with my dad, the person who influenced me to fall in love with this crazy sport. Of course, the Bruins won both games and I watched it all in with my dad and younger brother right beside me. Somewhere amongst the celebrations, the hugs and the complete shock, I recall my dad telling me to take everything in that’s happening, because there will never be another run quite like the one we had just saw.

Think about it: a total of 25 games including three Game 7 victories, two series of coming back from a 0-2 deficit and a first round victory that was clinched without scoring any power play goals. The 2010-11 Boston Bruins weren’t just good, they were lucky and every single fan who watched any of those games could have told you that. It was magic.

On Wednesday night, Game 7 of the Eastern Conference Quarterfinals between the Bruins and the Washington Capitals, that same mentality of thinking that the team was special, perhaps invincible, last year in the postseason ended up becoming the worse possible thing for every Bruins’ fan’s psyche.

Capitals will present challenges for Bruins

Everyone is picking the Boston Bruins over the Washington Capitals in the first round of the playoffs. Almost unanimously, in fact.

The reason behind each of these picks is the same, too—the Capitals, essentially, aren’t the same feared team they were in years past. If you factor in Washington’s ho-hum record during the regular season and the fact that their goaltending situation is a sort of carousel that would make the Philadelphia Flyers blush, than I guess it would make sense to pick the Bruins over the Capitals.

Me? I’m not sold yet. I might not be sold at all, actually.

Are the Bruins underdogs in the Eastern Conference again?

On Sunday, the Boston Bruins clinched the Northeast Division title with a 2-1 win over the New York Rangers, the reigning number one seed in the Eastern Conference. With the win, they would lock themselves into the #2 seed with three games still remaining. Although the number may indicate that the Bruins are the second-best team in the Conference, their overall record says otherwise.

Tell me who you think the top two teams in the Eastern Conference are. Here, I’ll answer my own question; it’s the Rangers and the Pittsburgh Penguins. Think again about who the top three teams are and you’ll hear some arguments for both the Bruins and the Philadelphia Flyers. However, many would believe that a trip to the 2012 Stanley Cup Finals runs through either the Consol Energy Center in Pittsburgh or Madison Square Garden in New York City. The Bruins might be the defending Stanley Cup champions, but they’re already the underdogs to repeat as Eastern Conference Champions, let along back-to-back Cup winners.

This is accurate. The Bruins are underdogs. Again.

They were last year, too.

Scorers-by-necessity: A look at secondary scorers providing first line points

Michael Ryder is having a career year with the Dallas Stars. This is a surprise, though it really shouldn’t have been.

When Ryder signed a two-year deal last summer with the Stars worth $3.5 million annually, he elevated himself from a third-line, secondary scorer on a Boston Bruins team with plenty of offensive weapons, to a first-line winger on a team that was losing star forward, Brad Richards, to free agency. Ryder was expected to become a primary scorer, a signing that would essentially have to replace the same point production that was lost when Richards left for the New York Rangers.

That’s right—Ryder, who surpassed 60 points only once, his rookie year in 2003-04 with Montreal, was supposed to replace the production of Richards, a player who’s only had one season out of ten under 60 points, an injury-plagued year in 2008-09 where he played only 56 games.

No surprise, then, that Ryder has 35 goals and 27 assists for 62 points with Dallas while Richards has 24 goals and 37 assists for 61 points with New York in the same amount of games played. Funny how that happens.