It’s been a while since I wrote about anything but the Yankees so I figured now would be a great time for a brand spanking new edition of my world famous This and That column.  This time we will look at the Bruins, Celtics, 49ers, and yes, the Yankees.  There’s a lot to cover so let’s dive right in. 

Something Bruin—The Boston Bruins just ended a seven game winning streak and sit well inside the playoff structure in the Eastern Conference.  As usual they have played more games than most of the other teams so it is hard to say exactly where they stand but they are off to a very good start to the season.  It took the Bruins a little while to learn the new defensive system that Sturm put in, but they’ve gotten a lot better at it, so they’re not no longer giving up seven goals a game, and that’s allowing them to be in games.  It also helps that Lohrie was benched for the first five games of this streak and it seems to have helped him figure things out as he has played much better since returning to the lineup.  With the defense improved, they’re getting enough offense to win these games.  They still can get much better on the defensive end in the system. They’re still having miscommunications. There are still guys being out of position, but they’ve gotten a lot better.  Their Penalty Kill can get better as well.  

Obviously, Geekie and Pastrnak are the two main scores on the team.  Fun fact, in the calendar year of 2025, they’re the two top goal scores in the NHL.  However, it’s not just them lighting the lamp.  They’re getting lots of secondary scoring from random guys every night. It’s not like one or two guys helping out, it’s pretty much everybody is going to score, and they get enough scoring to win. The Power Play has been much improved from last season when it was one of the worse in the league.  Even when they do not cash in, they usually have lots of possession time in their zone and get at least a few scoring chances. Hopefully it will continue to be a weapon. 

Their goaltending has been good.  Not perfect, but really good.  I Still think they need to find one more legit goal scorer, but that will probably have to wait until the trade deadline. There are a couple of guys I’ve got my eye on, we’ll have to see if the teams tank out, or if they turn it around.  Right now. The standings are, well, except for Calgary, who absolutely horrendous, the standings are all mushed together.  Most of the league is right around .500.  You win one game and suddenly you jump up four spots.  So, give it some more time for things to shake out and maybe there’s a goal scorer that they can target that can put this team over the top and turn them into a Contender.

Stumbling Out of the Blocks–The Boston Celtics are struggling to start the season.  Not really surprising. They have a fatal floor in that they are a terrible rebounding team.  Although it has gotten a better over the past few games, they are still giving up too many offensive rebounds and offsetting the good defense they are playing.  They are also giving up 9.5 more free throw attempts and 8.4 free throw makes a game to their opponent.  That’s a lot to overcome, especially without Tatum.  For the most part, they’re playing in close games, and they’re having problems executing down the stretch.  The Celtics are 2-5 in “clutch games”, i.e. games decides by 5 points or less. This has been a problem for this team for quite some time now.  Like five, six years.  They struggle that close out the end of close games.  And now they’re trying to do it with Jayson Tatum. It’s a lot harder. 

The good news is guys seem to be improving.  Walsh seems to be developing into the D and 3 guy they thought he could be when they drafted him. He’s still only 21-years-old.  His defense lately has been excellent.  And his three-point shooting has come around where he’s shooting 46.2% from down town.  His development into being that D and 3 guy they need would be fun thing to watch, and it will be tremendous for the team. It’s great to see Hugo get minutes and play great defense as well, and he makes plays. His three-point shooting has been very good.  He has made half of his attempts.  He does need to add more to his offensive game and figure out how to score in America.  Right now he is an opportunistic scorer, but he keeps getting caught and stuck in the paint and getting bottled up by the defense.  Moves he seemingly used in Europe haven’t been working for him.  He needs to adjust and seeing as he is only a 19-year-old rookie, I am sure he will.  Until he does, his defense and Basketball IQ is enough to get him minutes.

I really like Minotts game.  He is the perfect type of role player to take advantage of playing with the Jays.  He and Garza, who keeps improving his play, were good finds by Brad Stevens.  Simons is an explosive scorer who can put up numbers in bunches.  The Celtics really need this from him as besides Brown, they don’t have any guys who can light it up and do it by creating their own shot. 

Right now, I think the Celtics biggest problems are 1) White and Pritchard have not been shooting well.  You can add Houser to that list.  The Celtics really need guys to knock down open shots and having two of their starters struggle from the floor is really hurting them. 

The second problem is that they have too many wings.  With Brown, White, Minott, Simons, Hugo, Walsh, Scheierman, Houser and even Boucher, there are just too many guys for too few spots.  Mazzulla has calmed down a bit from playing 14 guys every game but he still could refine his rotation more.  I think guys will play better if they know their role and can get comfortable in the rotation.  Plus, they don’t have to worry about a bad play costing them minutes.  What really needs to happen is Stevens has to find a trade where he moves a wing or two for a rebounding big man.  It is still very early and they are still figuring things out.  I still expect them to turn things around and be a solid playoff team so it’s still too early to start counting ping pong balls. 

Bay Area M*A*S*H Unit–As for the San Francisco 49ers, I haven’t written anything about the 49ers because I’ve only seen like three of their games. I refuse to pay $500 to watch football games, and I’m sick of all these things you have to pay for to be able to watch sports.  Now when they’re on TV here, I watch them.  When they’re not, I follow online, but if I don’t watch the games, I can’t comment on how they’re playing because I didn’t see the game. I’m not Felger and Mazz, if I don’t watch the games. I won’t comment on it.

The injuries have obviously devastated the team, especially on defense, where I believe at one point they were missing at least seven of the 11 starters.  It’s totally ridiculous. By losing both Bosa and Warner, their season was basically ended.  The rest of the injuries are just piling on. 

On offense there have been injuries but they haven’t been as devastating.  Mostly because McCaffrey has somehow been one of the few guys to stay healthy and is having an MVP type season. And because Mack Jones has played very well in Purdy’s absence.  Which has meant that there was no reason to rush Purdy back.  Jones’ play will hopefully result in a nice package of draft picks this offseason when the Niners trade him to a QB needing team.  They were smart to sign him to two years rather than one like they did Sam Darnold, whom they lost for nothing.   

CMC is having a great season and if he can actually hold off the injury bug, he will most likely become the second player in history to have two 1000/1000 seasons.   Kittle’s return has helped the offense as well.  But no matter how good they play, you cannot ask a team to score 40 points every game to be able to win.  That’s where the 49ers are at right now.  They will win some more games because of their schedule which was always an asset for this season.  Having a last place schedule goes a long way towards teams turning things around.  If they do keep winning and actually make the playoffs, Kyle Shanahan better win the coach of the year award.      

Yankee Do(odle) Something—The GM meetings have come and gone and nothing has happened in MLB.  Hopefully teams are just waiting until the qualifying offer deadline hits on November 18^th so they can see who accepted and who didn’t before they start making moves.  Before the action starts I just want to point out something I skipped over in my Off-Season Preview, and that is that the Yankees have a lot of money coming off the books this year so they should have a lot of money to spend.  Assuming (and praying) that Grisham doesn’t accept his qualifying offer (I can’t fathom what they were thinking giving him a QO), Stanton is down to 19 mil, Goldschmidt’s 12.5 mil is gone, Devin Williams’ 8.6 mil is gone (I am assuming), plus all the other free agents who will leave.  The Yankees should have $70 mil to spend just to get back to what they spent last season.  They have plenty of money to make this team better than it was last season.   A lot better if they really want to. 

Well, that covers it for now. Until next time…