Boston changed governors after 51 years. Kochetkov barely noticed
Charlie Jacobs takes the Bruins' board seat from his father, and Boston gives Carolina's unbeaten goalie a quiet night in a 2-1 loss.
The Bruins made their biggest change in half a century this week, and naturally it happened in a boardroom instead of on the ice.
Jeremy Jacobs handed the governor's chair to his son Charlie on Wednesday after 51 years. Fifty-one years, and I can't keep a houseplant alive for 51 days.
Charlie isn't new, either. He's been the alternate governor for 26 years, and he's also been running the place as the team's CEO. That's not a succession plan, that's the longest apprenticeship I've ever heard of. Somewhere a union electrician is impressed.
Good for them, honestly. Now, about the actual hockey.
Tuesday in Raleigh, Boston lost 2-1 to Carolina and gave Pyotr Kochetkov 14 saves' worth of work all night. Kochetkov is now 8-0 to start the season with a 1.62 goals-against average, per NHL data, which is a lot of winning for a guy who says he doesn't know what to say.
Against the Bruins he looked like a guy waiting for a bus that wasn't coming, which, for the record, it mostly wasn't. "It's just my job, I don't know what to say," he said after. Buddy, same.
Pavel Zacha scored on the power play 91 seconds in, and everybody in Boston got their hopes up. Then the Bruins went quiet for the next 58 minutes, like a library with a scoreboard. Jackson Blake tied it with 52 seconds remaining in the first period, and Sebastian Aho delivered the winner at 10:19 of the third.
Boston got two late power plays to tie it and did absolutely nothing with either one. Carolina killed both of them like it was a Tuesday practice drill. Grade: C-minus. The minus is for the power plays, and the C is for Jeremy Swayman, who made 28 saves and deserved a better offense than a polite suggestion.
Marco Sturm said after, "We're just not there yet." Coach, it's a 2-1 loss in October against a 10-2-2 Carolina team that might be the best in the conference. "Not there yet" is what I say about my basement.
Kept off the sheet: Charlie McAvoy played 26 and a half minutes, by our count off the NHL boxscore, with zero shots and zero points. That's almost half a Patriots game. He brought a defenseman's lunch pail and forgot the sandwich.
Fight of the week: Tanner Jeannot and Nicolas Deslauriers went at 13:55 of the first. Jeannot played 8:42 and picked up seven penalty minutes, per NHL data. That's a guy who knows exactly where he's most useful and goes straight there, and I respect a man with a clear job description.
Bruins tax: The eight-game point streak ended, and Boston is 9-3-1. In Boston that's a crisis meeting, and in Toronto that's a parade route.
Not a real award: The Patience Is a Virtue Trophy goes to Charlie Jacobs, who waited 26 years for the big chair. The power play would like to know if it gets the same deal.
I said what I said.
