MOD
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How many pages do we have to go until somebody tells my why Bourque visably underperformed defensively between the 1991 CF and his final series as a Bruin?
Because the Bruins were largely a one line team, playing from behind, forcing him to try to offensively get more going? And numerous other factors. Bourque was the sort of guy who did not miss many games if he was walking wounded, even if he probably should have.
He had numerous knee injuries, which spilled over to affect his hips, groin, ankles and other body parts when you compensate by skating on an injured knee instead of resting like most athletes do today to avoid aggravating injuries. He had somewhere in the realm of 7-8 lower body injuries between 83-89, most were his knee. He was a near iron man despite these injuries.
Nevermind that in 91/92, his middle finger had a compound fracture from a slash right before the playoffs started(Shayne Corson took a baseball swing at his hand) and he had to wear a cast that seriously hampered his ability to grip his stick, and he had to get injections to numb it.
He had both back and ankle injuries in 92-93 throughout the year.
In 93-94 he blew out his knee right before the playoffs at the end of march and forced himself to play the playoffs, despite not being recovered.
And on and on. He was not a young man by this point, and these injuries add up. You once went on a big campaign for your favorite player Leetch's being a better performer, but hated that he did not even help his team get to the playoffs between the ages of 29-35 when he was traded to a playoff team.
But generally in that timeframe, if Oates was not on the ice and Bourque was, Boston's less than stellar depth on the 2nd and 3rd lines were scored on much more than they scored. Teams devised strategies specifically to nullify Bourque because the forwards were not a scoring threat, so it was not simply a matter of being able to split the attention. Lidstrom could easily pas to his defensive partner or numerous hall of fame two way forwards and expect something to happen even if he did not get into the play, and teams did not focus on shutting Lidstrom down like they did Bourque because they had bigger forward scoring threats to worry about. You don't shut down the supporting offense type defenseman, you try to shut down the people he is making those first passes to. In Bourque's case, teams wanted him to make those first passes and then backcheck on him like he was a forward because you are better off with anyone else carrying the puck than Bourque against you.
Nobody was out there saying "Hey, we have to devise a plan to stop Vlad Ruzicka, Stephen Leach, Ted Donato!" in 93. It was "Force Bourque to pass to Sweeney or one of those 3, and then obstruct and shadow him so he cannot get back into the play"
As the decade wore on, the secondary scoring got even worse than that. Heck, the primary scoring became Oates, Donato and Shawn McEachern. It was a trainwreck. Once Oates left, Josef Stumple was the highest scoring player. The defensive side of the teams were just as bad, if not worse in those years.
How about somebody explain why Bourque underperformed defensively between 1984 and 1987. These were Norris-trophy regular seasons?
Why? Why the dropoff in production?
84? Nobody on the team was getting anything going. Bourque tied for team lead in scoring with a whole 2 points in 3 games and was -2. 100+ point scorer Middleton was 0 points with -4 and he was widely considered one of the best defensive forwards in the league(Almost won the selke that year). 116 point Pederson had a point in 3 games. Why are you not busting their chops?
Bourque was minus 2 with 2 points. The bruins were outscored 10 goals to 2 in that 3 game series.
1985 I am assuming you don't care that he hurt his knee yet again this season near playoff time. Sure he only had 3 points in 5 games and was +1. The Habs scored 3, 4, 5 and 6 goals in the first 4 games of the series. The final game was a nailbiting 1 goal game.
1986. 0 points in 3 games and =/- 0. Patrick Roy won the Smythe for a reason this year. The Bruins scoring this playoff was not there. Not Bourque, not Pederson, not Rat Linesman, not Charlie Simmer. Except Randy Burridge. The team was collectively -16.
1986-87: Swept by the habs. Bourque had a goal and 2 assists and was -1. Given that Montreal scored nearly twice as many goals as Boston, and the team was a collective -45, I am not sure why you are singling him out here.
I watched all those games and rewatched them again.
What did I see? I saw a guy who looked tired, was overused and had difficulty with his gap control and reading rushes to the outside?
I saw a guy who was overcommitting and losing puck battles, making poor pinches.
Team problem? Not the one-on-one battles he lost with alarming regularity come Spring, or the lapses in coverage. That's an individual issue.
And if Bourque was gassed come playoff time, then that's a knock on Bourque. That's an individual issue.
If he had the inner fortitude to play like an ageless lion in 2001, why couldn't he do they same when he was 10 years younger?
I rarely if ever saw Lidstrom struggle with the basic tenets of defending once he established himself as the No. 1 on Detroit, which lasted over a decade.
Sorry if I key in on Bourque. Can't erase from memory what I physically saw.
I watched too. You either have a vendetta, or you need your eyes examined.
Judging by the selective stat picking and focus on only years you think do not measure up, it's a vendetta. You can selectively pick out years anyone played and stat rip them to pieces just as easily if you do not get into the context.
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