New Yorkers and Torontonians need some love.

It’s hard to say in which city you’ll find Boston wedged deeper into the sports psyches of the general public. In New York, Knicks fans are fraught with angst over the very real possibility that their basketball team could become the first in NBA history to blow a 3-0 playoff series lead to the Celtics, only nine years after the Red Sox dismissed the Yankees in a similarly embarrassing fashion in the ALCS. North of the border, Toronto’s baseball team has started the season as an overhyped, rebuilt, disaster. The Blue Jays are dwindling in last place in the AL East, already 10 ½ games behind the 20-8 Red Sox (on a 116-win pace, by the way), while the team’s broadcasters sling accusations that Clay Buchholz’s success this season must come down to Crisco.

If that’s the case, get R.A. Dickey a jar, stat. The Jays pitching staff, which possesses the 28th-best ERA in baseball, could use a Costco membership for all the lard they’ll need to turn things around.

But while New York could be in some serious need of comfort by Sunday, following a potential Game 7, Toronto is just a bit needier right now and in need of comfort and protection from the meanies from Boston. It’s been a tough week, after all; the Sox demoralized the Jays by taking two of three from John Gibbons’ crew in front of about 14 fans each night at the former SkyDome, and also had to witness the Maple Leafs, in their first NHL playoffs since 2004, get overwhelmed in Game 1 against the Bruins, 4-1 winners Wednesday night.

The young pup Leafs may have proven that they simply aren’t ready for prime time. Phil Kessel was reportedly in the Toronto lineup Wednesday, though nobody would have known it. James Reimer, fooled by black seats and blue butts, looked every bit the goalie making his first playoff spot that the Bruins couldn’t manage to prove a year ago against the Capitals’ Braden Holtby. And the next puck the Maple Leafs manage to get out of their own zone will probably result in a parade down University Avenue.

The Red Sox do not return to Toronto until August, and who knows what might happen by then. Josh Beckett may even have a win over there in Los Angeles. But the Bruins-Leafs series shifts to Hogtown come next week, when the Bruins can attempt to wrap things up in four should they win Saturday night in Boston and Monday night on the road. That’s not to get ahead of ourselves at any stretch of the imagination, of course, but merely a reflection of the way that woe-is-me Toronto fans are probably visualizing things playing out.

It’s OK, Toronto. You’re a fine city and all, but we can’t help that John Farrell would rather hone his baseball craft here than there. It’s not exactly our fault that Tyler Seguin and Dougie Hamilton should be yours. We gave you two years of Roger Clemens while you re-paid the favor with two-plus maddening months of Tomas Kaberle. We’re cool, right?

The Maple Leafs haven’t won a Stanley Cup since 1967, the Blue Jays haven’t seen the World Series trophy since Joe Carter went deep, and the Toronto Raptors…wait, they still exist? Then again, the Argonauts are Grey Cup champions, so there’s that. The feeling must be kind of like when the Cannons won their title, I suppose. Kinda neat-o.

It’s been a tough run for Toronto, and Boston isn’t making it any easier of late. For that, we’re sorry.

Then again, it’s not like we’re just floating by either. Andrew Ference is now suspended for Game 2, and Buchholz has to now prove to the rest of the baseball world that he’s not cheating, thanks to the accusations of a borderline pitcher/author and a once-again Hall of Fame denial. You’ll still want to root for Boston Friday night though. If the Celtics can pull this off, New York is really going to need a hug.

So, sorry that we’re in your heads. Again.

Good morning, pulse. Welcome back.

Where ya been?

The Boston Bruins kicked off the 2013 NHL playoffs with an impressive 4-1 win over the Toronto Maple Leafs Wednesday night, looking nothing like the team that lingered through the second half of the shortened season, and every bit like a team playing with some purpose and passion. Again.

Finally.

Time will tell whether Game 1 was a signal that the heartbeat that drives these Bruins has returned to the Hub or if these young Leafs simply aren’t ready for prime time, but for one night, let’s call it a push. The Bruins took advantage of the Leafs’ mistakes and turnovers, and battered Toronto goalie James Reimer, who may or may not have been hearing “Luongo” chants from the crowd by the end of the evening.

But when Wade Redden is leading the charge, you have to assume things are going well.

Claude Julien went with experience over youth in Game 1, electing to go with veteran defenseman Redden while Dougie Hamiltion watched his first NHL playoff experience from the rafters. Of course, it paid off when Redden scored Boston’s first goal of the game, tying the game at 1 in the first, then nearly adding a second tally with seconds remaining in the period when Nathan Horton deflected his shot for a 2-1 lead.

Wade Redden?

Redden had scored only once since the Bruins acquired him last month, and most recently had been known as a forgotten soul in New York, where he was banished to the AHL. When the Bruins plucked him from St. Louis for a conditional draft pick, the best that could be said about the deal was that Redden and Zdeno Chara would old line buddies during their days in Ottawa. Expecting more than dressing room camaraderie seemed a stretch.

But...well, Wade Redden. Playoff hero.

“It’s been a long road. Obviously, the position I was in, a lot of uncertainties,” Redden said after his first playoff game since 2009. “But I kept working and kept believing. It’s great to be here now and have the chance, and I’m going to try to make the most of it.”

On that note, the Bruins certainly took advantage of every opportunity while the Leafs wilted in the raucous atmosphere of the Garden. In the game’s first five minutes, everything that Bruins fans worried about their team heading into the postseason rang true when Boston found itself in a 1-0 deficit after James van Riemsdyk’s power play goal. But instead of instantly going into panic mode, which is what the Bruins of the last half of this season might have done, they found the energy that was so missing most nights that they took the ice. They attacked Reimer, who had 36 saves on 40 shots, while his counterpart at the other end of the ice, Tuukka Rask, turned away every chance the Leafs tossed his way after the first period hiccup.

In his first playoff start since that night against the Philadelphia Flyers in 2010, Rask was workmanlike, but hardly tested all evening. Overmatched and intimidated, the young Leafs appeared lost after Horton’s score, unsure of how to play with a deficit while the playoff-tested Bruins ran over them. Good for night one. But the way they left the regular season behind, it’s only fair to question if Boston can do the same with any sort of consistency moving forward in the series.

We do remember the Bruins won Game 1 against the Capitals last spring, right?

“This series is not over,” Toronto’s Joffrey Lupul said. “There is plenty of belief in here.”

As there should be. Yet, they’re panicking already in Toronto, where it’s been nine years since a night like Wednesday. Hockey success plays in Toronto the way baseball success plays on the north side of Chicago, or football success in Buffalo; it’s a foreign concept with not much confidence in tow. The Bruins did little to change that out of the chute.

The Cup run may be in its infancy, but it sure was nice to run into an old friend on Wednesday.

If we meet that intensity three more times, maybe there will be reason to wonder if we might not see it 12 more times after that. It’s been a long while since we saw the Bruins look as good as they did against the Leafs.

Back at it Saturday. Wade Redden is ready.

Confidence?

Faith?

Hope?

Whatever level of conviction you may want to apply, there indeed seems to be a dearth of positive mojo within the fandom of the Boston Bruins as they get set to open the 2013 NHL playoffs against the Toronto Maple Leafs Wednesday night. The Bruins head into the postseason only 6-7-1 over the last month, and the last time Boston beat a playoff team was way back on April 2, a 3-2 win over the Ottawa Senators.

It gets worse. From a scoring standpoint, the Bruins make the second-half Celtics look unstoppable. In 12 of its last 16 games, Boston has managed to score only a pair of goals, and the Bruins have won a grand total of three times over that stretch. The power play remains stuck in neutral, and the penalty-kill, which at one point was among this team’s strengths, has deteriorated into a crutch.

Flipping a switch is one thing. Asking this jumbled mess of offensive prowess to instantly morph into something they haven’t come close to being for the last two months is something else entirely.

The Bruins will go as far as Tuukka Rask can take them is the general refrain in picking the Bruins to win their first playoff series in two years, but what can Bruins fans reasonably expect? Rask isn’t Tim Thomas of 2011, and as we saw last spring, even Tim Thomas couldn’t be that guy again against the Washington Capitals, who downed the Bruins in seven games, each decision coming down to a single goal on either side. A year later, offense is still at a premium, and the signs that it might miraculously appear in time for the party seem like grasping at the short straws that Claude Julien utilizes to pick his line combinations.

After disappearing for the bulk of the shortened season, Milan Lucic reemerged for the stretch run at the end of the season, playing with a purpose that the Bruins had been missing. But to expect Lucic to be the force we all expect him to be seems foolhardy, especially when we remember his postseason run during the Stanley Cup year, which is to say an APB was submitted for his whereabouts most nights. Nathan Horton, slated to return to the ice tonight, has an impressive postseason resume, but hasn’t exactly been the dependable scorer the Bruins figured he might be this season, free from concussion symptoms and heading into free agency this summer. Tyler Seguin should be a force, yet his seeming insistence to not drive to the net has become maddening. Jaromir Jagr, such an encouraging addition at the trading deadline, has shown only flashes that he can be the missing piece that will extend this season into June. The way the Bruins plodded through the last month showed little urgency, flat-lining in the season’s biggest contests against the Pittsburgh Penguins, and failing to even capture the emotional energy in the days following the Boston Marathon bombings.

This may be Toronto’s first playoff appearance since 1945 (or something like that), but the Maple Leafs may just be the envy of the rest of the NHL, landing the schizophrenic Bruins in the first round.

“It isn’t the long shot some are making it out to be,” writes the Toronto Sun’s Steve Simmons. “The Leafs have a better power play than the Bruins, kill penalties better, have more offensive weapons especially if Phil Kessel, Joffrey Lupul and Nazem Kadri play on three different lines. The question for Toronto is different than the question for Boston: Can the Leafs leave their lousy ending behind and find a new energy for the playoffs? If they do that, and can play the kind of hockey Randy Carlyle preached loudly at practice Tuesday, it isn’t out of the question that they go toe-to-toe with the Bruins.”

Not only is it not out of the question, Bruins fans should be prepared for it to go the distance.

The Maple Leafs have had their own late-season issues as well, and when it comes to the intangible of experience, only James van Riemsdyk has any level of what it’s like to go on a deep run. Kessel leaves his Prozac at home when he faces the Bruins, and James Reimer has allowed three or more goals in five of his last 11 games, including four against the Canadiens in his season finale.

But to expect Rask to be the primary reason the Bruins have a chance at the Cup is foolhardy. If the Bruins play at the level we’ve become accustomed to over the last six to eight weeks, no goalie should have that impossible burden thrust upon him. Two years ago, it took three Game 7’s to become the class of the NHL, an accomplishment that took domination in net, and maybe even a little luck.

That team also got angry in the end, a trait that led to an attitude adjustment that would ultimately define them.

We haven’t seen any semblance of that with this team. Frankly, since February, we haven’t seen much at all with this team.

Maple Leafs in seven.

The most concerning thing to be said about Clay Buchholz’s start to the 2013 season is that his ERA has ballooned each of his last three starts.

From 0.41 to 0.90 to 1.19, where it stands now after winning his American League-leading fifth game of the young season Thursday night against the Houston Astros, 7-2. Pfft. That's almost triple what it once was a week-and-a-half ago. Time for alarm?

It has been some kind of start for Buchholz and teammate Jon Lester, who are a combined 9-0 this month. On the flip side, that means in games in which starters 3-5 have taken the mound, the Sox are a so-so 6-7, but albeit an encouraging sub-.500 considering how well Ryan Dempster has looked for the most part and the potential for John Lackey to be a more-than-decent fifth starter when he returns.

Clearly, the theory that manager John Farrell could get into the psyche of both Buchholz and Lester, following disappointing seasons for both under the Bobby Valentine regime, is proving true. But as well as Lester has rebounded, it is Buchholz who has been dazzling out of the gate.

Consider:

In 2012, Buchholz won his fifth game on June 1. In his 17-win season of 2010, he won game No. 5 on May 19.

Buchholz has pitched at least seven innings in each of his first five starts and has yet to allow more than two earned runs in a game. The last pitcher to do that was Livan Hernandez in 2002. Hernandez would only go on to a 12-16 record for the San Francisco Giants, however.

The last Red Sox pitcher to have an ERA lower than Buchholz after his first five starts was Roger Clemens in 1991, when the Rocket went 18-10 with a 2.62 ERA, numbers good enough for his third Cy Young Award. One year earlier, perhaps Clemens’ finest in a Red Sox uniform, he went 4-1 with a 3.09 ERA for April.

And while we’re on the subject of unfairly comparing Buchholz’s start to that of the greatest pitchers to don the Boston uniform over the last generation, Pedro Martinez was 4-1 with a 2.21 ERA during the first month of 1999, and 5-0 with a 1.27 ERA during the first month of 2000. That two-year stretch, of course, is widely regarded among the greatest for a pitcher in the modern era.

Buchholz is right there with him.

For starters.

Buchholz has allowed five earned runs all season, which to give it some perspective, is one run fewer than Alfredo Aceves surrendered in the third inning alone on Tuesday against Oakland. He leads the league in innings pitched (37 2/3), and is second to Yu Darvish in strikeouts (Darvish’s 49 to Buchholz’s 39). No AL pitcher with 30 or more innings pitched has allowed fewer earned runs.

“Yeah, things are going right right now,” Buchholz said. “When a ball’s hit, even a hard ball, it seems like it’s right at somebody. That doesn’t happen like that all the time, so you have to savor it while it is.”

“Past couple of years I’ve been a slow starter. It feels good to get out there and following up spring training with a little bit of confidence and not feeling like there’s anything that I have to fix.”

It’s foolhardy to suggest that each Buchholz start brings with it the electricity that Martinez brought to the ballpark, or the potential for greatness each time Clemens took the hill, but in these early stages, he’s become appointment viewing.

In 2004, Curt Schilling and Pedro Martinez went 6-2 combined during the first month of the season. In 2002, Derek Lowe and Martinez went 7-2. Bruce Hurst and Clemens went 8-0 to begin the 1988 campaign. Buchholz and Lester have combined to win more April games than three of the best Boston one-two punches over the last 25 years.

Lester can make it an even 10 with his start in Toronto on Tuesday, which would cap off as an impressive start to a Boston rotation’s season as anyone can remember. But April can also tease and ultimately break your heart. It has to be noted that Boston’s 15-7 start is the team’s best since 1994 (a 17-7 April), the year of the baseball strike (Les Expos, never forget) when Boston finished the shortened season 54-61, 17 games behind the Yankees.

How that team got off to that start though is anyone’s guess. Clemens was uneven in the first month, Danny Darwin somehow got off to a 4-1 record with a stratospheric ERA, Frank Viola was a puddle before undergoing Tommy John surgery after only six starts, and Aaron Sele was the early-season staff ace, going 3-0 with a 2.56 ERA over April. If this Red Sox starting staff is keeping pace with that schizophrenic group, it’s not so risky to figure loftier aspirations are ahead.

Maybe we’ll even have the chance to mention Lester and/or Buchholz in the same breath as Clemens and Martinez. For the time being, we’ll just keep the comparisons at a whisper.

Stink.

Stank.

Stunk.

That was one disastrous evening on the local professional sports docket.

For the second time in four days, all three of Boston’s in-season teams were in action within the realm of the same hours, and if you thought Saturday was disappointing after the Celtics fell to the Knicks in Game 1 of the Eastern quarterfinals and the Bruins lost – again – to the Penguins, leaving Daniel Nava and the Red Sox to bring up the lone, salvaging victory, then, well, Tuesday had its own semblance of frustration, confusion, and haplessness to deliver.

In order of most concerning, the Celtics collapsed in the second half their Eastern quarterfinal series against the Knicks, and fell 87-71, as New York now takes a 2-0 lead into Friday night’s Game 3 in Boston. Pretty sure Kevin Garnett came into the game with two fouls on him already, which might be a new rule we’re missing, but his teammates were, in a word, pathetic offensively after halftime. Boston scored 23 points in the third and fourth quarters, setting a franchise low for a half, and made only seven of 36 shots.

In the fourth quarter, the Celtics scored eight points. On its side, that’s ∞, the universal symbol for an infinity of futility.

We can play the “Would they be better with Rondo” game if you don’t feel like picking up the nearest pen and stabbing it into your cornea for something less painful, but this is essentially the Celtics team that fans have been dealt. They’ll likely make it a series still, but there’s little from the first two games that gives anyone hope that this team can get past the first round. Though it was the hope in the weeks leading up to the postseason, a deep run seems foolhardy.

Meanwhile in Philadelphia, the Bruins continued their impressive tailspin into the playoffs with a mind-numbing 5-2 loss to the soon-to-be-golfing Flyers. In their six losses, the Bruins have scored a total of 10 goals, a sure sign of their offensive ineptitude. Seemingly every goal is a result of a scramble around the net, including last night when Wade Redden scored his first Boston goal to tie the game at 1 in the first period. Things got worse.

The playoffs begin in a week, and the Bruins are in freefall. It all fell apart last night, from the tandem of Anton Khubodin and Tuukka Rask to defensive breakdowns to…well, Zdeno Chara.

That happened.

Chara’s goal on his own net pretty much sums up how things are going for the Bruins right now. Boston could have taken the opportunity to leapfrog Montreal for the division lead with a win Tuesday, but yet, the rivals remain with 59 points each, setting the Bruins up with either Ottawa or Toronto for a first-round matchup based on the current standings. Those are both pretty good opponents for the Bruins we were used to seeing for most of this season. But something is seriously wrong with this group, and based on its talent level, offensive firepower should not be a concern. Is the system broken then? Tim Thomas played mirage to many of the Bruins’ deficiencies during the Cup run two years ago. Asking Rask to do the same isn’t realistic. Maybe the approach simply needs to change in the offseason.

Finally, at Fenway Park, Alfredo Aceves gave us one of the most futile innings a baseball fan will ever see when he allowed six runs to Oakland, including two balks and a throwing error. The Sox lost, 13-0, the game called after seven innings at a damp, raw Fenway, and Aceves seemed to blame the game on everything from the strike zone to his teammates’ failure to hit behind him. The Sox did manage a measly three hits against the ageless Bartolo Colon (Stephen Drew, 0-2, .368 OPS), who is now 3-0 on the season for Oakland, but this was clearly a game in which Aceves lost whatever bit of mind he still possesses, and a possible precursor to his imminent release. With John Lackey and Daniel Bard on the mend, and after what we witnessed from Allen Webster Sunday night, is there really a need for the rumbling volcanic potential with Aceves? If Tuesday wasn’t the final straw, the man has incriminating photos of John Farrell or someone.

One night. Three demoralizing losses.

There have been better nights to be a Boston sports fan, but Tuesday brought with it a sense of doom for the Celtics season, and the franchise going forward, the Bruins’ ability to rekindle the magic of 2011, and jobs coming and going on the Red Sox, the only team of the three to lose Tuesday in the 617 area code under dark and cold foreboding skies that eventually put both teams and fans out of their misery earlier than originally anticipated.

They’ll be the first ones out of the gate Wednesday (4:05 p.m.) to try and rebound Boston from one of the worst sports evenings in recent memory.

All three teams will be back in action, in town, on the same day again come Sunday (Knicks-Celtics, 1 p.m., Astros-Red Sox, 1:35 p.m., Senators-Bruins, 7 p.m.). Mulligan.

Old buddy Josh Beckett pitched in Baltimore Saturday.

Allen Webster pitched in Boston Sunday.

One start went just as you might expect. The other provided an encouraging glimpse into the perhaps-potent future of the Red Sox rotation.

While it’s clear that Carl Crawford (.338, .427 OBP), Nick Punto (.990 OPS), and Adrian Gonzalez (1.008 OPS, and in his comfort zone now, back on a team where he’s removed from the microscope of pressure and accountability) have gotten off to hot starts for the Los Angeles Dodgers, just 8-10 thus far on the season, Beckett is now 0-3 with a 4.68 ERA after his effort against the Orioles, in which Baltimore rocked the former Red Sox ace for eight hits, three walks, and six runs over 5 2/3 innings. Beckett has won only twice since the blockbuster trade to the Dodgers last August, and only three times since last July 15, his final victory in a Red Sox uniform. He has allowed six home runs over 25 innings this season, a stat that the Los Angeles’ Times Dylan Hernandez calls his “Joe Blanton imitation.”

It hasn’t all been Beckett’s fault. In his third start of the season, he was electric against Arizona, allowing just one run over 8 1/3 innings in which he struck out nine, and the offense supporting him has been increasingly lacking. But if the last two-plus years have taught us anything, those starts are the exception rather than the rule for Beckett, the one-time ace who seemingly is content with his freefall into obscurity.

Meanwhile, the 23-year-old Webster, who came to Boston along with Rubby De La Rosa and a host of others in last summer’s trade with Los Angeles, impressed in his debut Sunday night against the Royals, allowing two earned runs over six innings of work, and topping 97 miles per hour on the gun three times during the course of his 84 pitches. In Pawtucket, the kid had pitched 10 innings over two starts and allowed only one run while striking out 12, a precursor to the excitement that percolated when the Red Sox announced that he would get the nod in the second game of Sunday’s day-night doubleheader.

Webster did nothing to deny him another start, and it’s a given that most fans would jump at the chance to plug him in again for the confounding Alfredo Aceves until John Lackey returns from the disabled list. He’s more electric than Felix Doubront, for sure, but Felix Morales’ return is also going to muddy a crowded bullpen, which could spark the end for Andrew Miller. Webster’s impressive start may turn out to be little more than a serviceable moment for the time being, unless he pitches at a level in Pawtucket that gives John Farrell and Ben Cherington little option but to utilize him every fifth day.

Meanwhile, De La Rosa has struggled a bit in Triple-A this season, posting a 13.50 ERA over 6 2/3 innings on a pitch count that will go through the end of the month. The 24-year-old was, for the most part, the more ballyhooed name at the time of the trade, but remains raw. What Sox fans were able to witness on Sunday was the very first reward from the Beckett-Punto-Gonzalez-Crawford dump; a flame-throwing starter making his first major league mark at the age of 23. Of course, the sensible odds are that you’re more apt to see him pitch down 95 more than in the Fens this season, but the potential for stardom is salivating, and his first foray with the big boys did not disappoint.

Then there’s Beckett, making $15.8 million this season and next. At the age of 33, his best days are clearly behind him, and his Baseball Reference list of similar pitchers by age reads like a who’s who of untapped potential: Chuck Dobson. Ben McDonald. Mark Prior, athletes who flirted with greatness for a short time, but were never able to hang onto it for the long term, or simply fell apart whether it was due to injury or makeup. With Beckett, it’s as little bit of both.

Even before we had witnessed what Webster might be able to deliver at the pro level, the trade was already a success, the Red Sox have ridden themselves of divisive members of a clubhouse gone awry, freeing themselves of cash, and obtaining two pitching prospects that could provide serious dividends in the near future. Never since the Derek Lowe-Jason Varitek for Heathcliff Slocumb deal have we witnessed such a coup.

Even despite the hot starts for Gonzalez, Crawford, and yes, Punto, the deal keeps getting better for the 12-6 Sox, a surprising start following a dismal 2012, and one that is highlighted by its starting pitching, which leads the AL with a 2.53 ERA, tied for the lead with Oakland and New York with 9 wins from starters, and is second overall to Texas with a 1.16 WHIP. Jon Lester and Clay Buchholz have been the best 1-2 punch in the league this side of Texas’ Yu Darvish and Derek Holland, and Ryan Dempster has been mostly encouraging, even without a win to his name. The fact that the team can’t find a permanent spot for Webster after what he showed on Sunday is only one more sign that points to the strength of this team.

It’s difficult to mock the Dodgers if only because every Red Sox fan should be eternally grateful for Magic Johnson and Co., looking to make a splash, only to take a bath with the ace they thought they might be landing.

They got the same guy Boston fans were all too used to on Saturday.

A day later, Boston had its first giggle over what could be many last laughs down the road.

Wednesday night at the Garden had all the emotion you could hope for.

Then, the Bruins took the ice.

Perhaps it’s a bit unfair to question the Bruins’ effort against the Buffalo Sabres in the wake of the raw display at the Garden, highlighted by Rene Rancourt prompting a sellout crowd to sing the National Anthem in unison, resulting in perhaps the most genuine and moving banner prior to any sporting event, including 17,565 presumed fist pumps as well. For the first time since Monday’s bombings, Boston had its first public gathering, and the uplifting pregame scene only added another volume to the book that details the strength and resolve of this city.

As for the Bruins, yes they picked up a point in Wednesday’s 3-2 overtime loss to the Sabres, clinched a playoff spot, and leaped ahead of the floundering Montreal Canadiens for the division lead with a game in hand. Not a bad evening all around on the surface of things.

So, it’s hard to point the finger over a point they were 27 seconds away from gaining if not for the ill-timed delay of game penalty on Andrew Ference. But even with three days off, the Bruins appeared more a plodding third period team than one playing with a sense of purpose. Ryan Miller made 41 saves for Buffalo, but the Bruins made a healthy amount of those easier than they would have liked. Milan Lucic played 10:53 and didn’t have a single shot, yet another performance that had Bruins fans at a continued loss for words. Tyler Seguin and Daniel Paille each had four shots in 14:49 and 13:24 of ice time, respectively. Among forwards, neither came even close to the time Claude Julien gave to Gregory Campbell (18:32, zero shots).

But that’s really a question that has passed its prime time. I could more succinctly explain the compound mixture for JuJubees than I could what crossed Julien’s mind when it comes to shuffling lines. Much like their still-stagnant power play, the Bruins get plenty of offensive opportunities, but too often look like a mule with a spinning wheel (nobody knows how they got it, and danged if they know how to use it) with the puck in their hands. That’s why Chris Kelly’s second-period score was a bit encouraging, in that his second attempt to score on Miller wasn’t your garden-variety slap at the pads, which was otherwise commonplace on Wednesday, yet a quick lift of the puck that showed a keen awareness of Miller’s position in the crease.

Still, the Bruins’ failure to put games away in the third period is becoming a percolating concern, if not a defining epidemic.

Wednesday’s loss was the 12th time in the last 16 games that the Bruins have managed to score two or fewer regulation goals. They are 7-7-2 over that stretch which began with a 2-1 loss to the Pittsburgh Penguins on March 17, days following a loss to the Eastern Conference-leading Penguins in which they held a one-goal lead late into the third.

Those Penguins come into Boston Friday night for an anticipated showdown, complete with Jarome Iginla, who jilted the Bruins last month after Peter Chiarelli acquired the forward from Calgary. Iginla has produced a 2-4-6 line for his new team thus far, comparable to Jaromir Jagr’s 1-6-7 with the Bruins, and both contests, neither of which Jagr or Iginla has been a part of, between the two teams this season have been nail-biters, with the Bruins coming up just a little short in each. Unfortunately, that seems to be a recurring refrain when Boston faces teams other than Pittsburgh too.

After the scene in the Garden Wednesday, the Bruins’ deficiencies would be easy to dismiss, if they weren’t so familiar or a harbinger.

"We wanted to go out there and win that hockey game. I'm disappointed that we didn't," Kelly said. "We wanted to give the city something to be happy about."

Even in defeat, they did. Securing a playoff spot and leaping in front of the Canadiens isn’t a bad way to spend a lost opportunity either, especially during an evening that emotionally defined the people and fans of Boston. There is no denying the passion and determination that fills the stands, whether it be at the Garden, Fenway Park, or Gillette Stadium.

With the postseason less than two weeks away, it’d be nice to see more of the same from the Bruins.

The timestamp on the email reads 2:36 p.m.

I had just finished a piece from the finish line of the Boston Marathon, where at the three-hour mark of the fabled race, runners spoke not merely of their accomplishments, but the crowd and volunteer support that drove them. There was Australia native Jodi Obourne, who wore her country’s name on her chest with pride to the cheering delight of thousands along the race route, still in the glow of fellow countryman Adam Scott's historic win at the Masters a day earlier. There was San Francisco’s Taylor Ahlgren, who had lost a bet and was forced to run the marathon in a zebra costume, as the throngs cheered him on with the moniker “Zebra Man.” There was Portsmouth N.H.’s Eric Beidelman, who helped raise more than $200,000 for the Run Tri Ride to End Alzheimer's by running the marathon.

They spoke of the crowd, mostly, and why its presence makes the Boston Marathon the best race in the world. They relayed why Boston is special among all races, the premier event on any marathon runner’s calendar, and an omnipresent “to-do” for those aspiring to be one of those navigating his or her way from Hopkinton to Boston.

I sent it off at 2:36 then made my way back to the finish line to soak up more of the atmosphere; families reuniting and elated friends celebrating.

Then…

The instant aftermath of the Boylston Street bombings was one of both immediate response and mass confusion. And that was only in the immediate vicinity. One can only imagine the disorder in the blocks and turns yet to approach the turn from Mass. Ave.

Of the 23,326 runners who started the race in Hopkinton, 17,584 finished before the race was stopped. Another 4,496 crossed the 40-kilometer mark, but did not cross the finish line, and beyond that, another 1,246 remained, either having dropped out, or stopped along the way.

Portland Ore. native Claire Carder was about a half-mile from the finish line when the 60-year-old was told her quest to finish a marathon in a 47th state would come to an abrupt end.

“They called everybody off the course,” she told The Oregonian. “It was word of mouth.”

These are the personal stories that rarely make the headlines, yet they are no less significant than the men and women who happen to run faster than everybody else. Lives and livelihood were both taken in one, swift 15-second period that has altered our mentality and approach to daily life. Again.

It may be menial in the grand scheme, but almost 6,000 people had a dream denied Monday. Their quest was halted not by weakness of their legs, but the cowardice and evil of whomever is responsible for the despicable bombings. I’m not a runner, nor do I ever strive to be, so I don’t completely get it, but it’s difficult to deny the fabric and camaraderie that makes up a running community. Hell, I’ve had to leave the room when running friends get started because I simply can’t think of anything more boring or foreign to discuss at length. That doesn’t deny a runner his or her passion and drive.

But somebody did just that on Monday.

As they were denied, so were we. Blind runners, handicapped runners, runners running for various hospitals and disease research, runners clad in ridiculous outfits, and that crazy kid running the marathon on stilts to raise money for Shriner’s Hospital. Their triumphs faded into incompletion and uncertainty, halted along the course like a herd of cows. The marathon was suddenly and eerily over. So was their quest for it.

What happens next? If you have an answer to that question, you’re lying. After I began to process the severity of yesterday to some degree, I had a flashback to that glorious summer day two years ago when a million people packed the downtown streets of Boston to celebrate the Bruins’ Stanley Cup championship. I held my then-three-year-old son on my shoulders with the only fear resulting from the teenager that attempted to pickpocket me in the middle of the dozen-deep crowd.

What if they win again? What if the Celtics, Red Sox, or Patriots win again? How can we celebrate? Will we be able to revel without the fear of Monday altering our notable celebrations? Can we let what happened on Boylston Street interfere?

What will become of the Boston Marathon under heightened awareness? We simply don’t know. We can't know. It is a bridge to be crossed at some indeterminable point as authorities continue to sift through mountains of evidence. Maybe spectators will be denied certain liberties that had become the norm, but it’s hard to imagine the determination of the athletes ever being affected, even in the wake of tragedy.

Thousands of runners had their personal triumphs swiped away from them yesterday, just one more upsetting aspect of an event that ripped open Boston’s heart, revealing both sorrow and grief and heroism and resolve.

Once I finally returned to my laptop in the media center, I sifted through my already endless email. Among the messages was a response from my finish line piece, it having finished the copy editing process and published.

The timestamp was 2:51 p.m.; one minute after the first bomb went off.

In 60 seconds, the account had changed. Thousands of lives had changed. And Boston, as resolute a town as you’ll ever see, hinged on the boundary of fear and determination.

Only one can win, and you’d damn well better believe it’ll be the latter.

Over the years, our fine friends in Sweden have given us ABBA, Ace of Base, Dolph Lundgren, meatballs, and, perhaps most importantly, Malaco, the confectionary company that popularized Swedish Fish and sour watermelon slices.

It’s time for a boycott, Boston.

Stop driving your Volvos. Skip that weekend trip to IKEA. Brew some Green Mountain instead of your morning Gevalia. The Boston Bruins’ offensive woes have become a matter of national security, and Sweden, of all things, is standing in the way.

On Thursday, the Swedish Ice Hockey Federation blocked Carl “The Yeti” Soderberg from joining the Bruins, despite the fact that the elusive forward had signed a deal with Boston earlier in the week. The release by his Swedish team, Linkoping, then the league, seemed like it would be only a matter of protocol. Apparently not.

As it turns out, Sweden wants Soderberg to play in the World Championships in May. Neat. Look, Sweden, it’s cute and all that you’ll be one of the host countries, but too damned bad. Had any of you actually watched the Bruins plod through Thursday night’s game against the Islanders as if they were skating in drying cement you’d understand the urgency of bringing the guy to Boston. You might even have some level of sympathy for the cause.

According to the Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter (translated via Google): “The Board has decided this evening to Carl's outlets in the squad and we want him to represent Sweden, says Hockey League vice-president Peter Forsberg told Aftonbladet…According to the agreement we have with the NHL, there is a clause which states that a player who has been selected in the national team should not play in the NHL. It is a matter of principle for us we release on this can start an avalanche of transitions after the season, says Peter Forsberg told Aftonbladet.Defying Soderberg covenant may mean that he does not get to play future international championships.”

What is this? Sweden or East Germany?

For his part, Soderberg has already taken on the role of defiant countryman and said he won’t play for Team Sweden. According to expressen.se (again, in translation): “He has refused to coach Pär Mårts. And he has made it clear through the contract that has been developed for the transition to the Boston Bruins in the NHL. Par (Mårts) talked to him last week and I've even seen the document which Carl has written and where it says that he does not want to play in the World Cup, says Tre Kronor general manager Tommy Boustedt.”

That same article includes a Q&A with Tre Kronor general manager Tommy Boustedt:

Will Carl Soderberg banned from future games in the Tre Kronor if he goes over to Boston and NHL?

- I can not speculate because it's a race issue, but definitely he breaks the rules.It's that simple, says Boustedt.

Sad news for Carl Soderberg?

- Of course it is, but at the same time our board has a responsibility to Swedish ice hockey because there's something called precedent. It can get all dams to crack unless rules are followed, says Boustedt.

Tommy Boustedt believe that the NHL is behind the Swedish Ice Hockey Association decision.

- Sweden is in negotiations with the NHL on a new NHL contract and neither the NHL or we want the negotiations to fail. Sweden is outside North America, the largest supplier of players and they want to have a good cooperation with us and we also believe in cooperation, he said.

- I suspect that Boston would like to proceed with this and we do not expect the matter been resolved, but we are awaiting what happens.

Here’s what’s going to happen, Mr. Boustedt: Soderberg, who scored 31 goals with 29 assists this season for Linkoping, is going to catch the next flight from Sweden to Logan, and he’s going to suit up and learn to adjust his game to the smaller ice surface in time for the Stanley Cup playoffs. Get it? The Stanley Cup playoffs. That’s the one with the trophy. A big one (thank you, Jeremy Jacobs). He’s not going to play for whatever participation award you guys hand out overseas, he’s going to play for the most historic championship trophy in professional sports. Sorry he doesn’t want to play for you though. That’s gotta sting. The Sedins may very well be available pretty early on in May, though.

Obviously, this could all be resolved with a little more greasing of the skids, but it’s just downright stupid that Sweden has to make this into an international affair. The Bruins have a contract in place. Soderberg – finally – wants to play for said contract in place. And the Swedish Ice Hockey Federation is what’s holding things up? Sweeten the deal then with a fruit basket, an autographed photo of Blades, and game tape of Milan Lucic over the past 25 games just in order to convey the utmost urgency of getting Soderberg in here. You know how nobody can resist puppy slideshows? The Swedish won't be able to resist letting Soderberg come to Boston after watching Lucic for more than seven or eight shifts.

Nobody really knows what to expect from Soderberg, and frankly, it’s up in the air as to what Claude Julien decides to do with him (Claude, is it too hard to have a Tyler Seguin-David Krejci-Jaromir Jagr top line? Please? Please?) is anyone’s guess as well. But heck if Sweden is going to block him from potentially helping out down the stretch and into the playoffs.

The days of communism are over, Sweden. Soderberg is a free man, all grown up, and can do and play where he wants. Sorry. Those are the rules we play by here in America, land of the free, or have you not received the memo? Sorry he doesn’t want to play for you, but keep trying to force that issue. I’m sure things will work out splendidly.

And so, just as it has been since 2007, when the Bruins acquired his rights for Hannu Toivonen, Soderberg will be a Bruin. Someday.

We think.

Vancouver clearly isn't over losing the Stanley Cup.

The following tweet was sent out Thursday night by Northlands Golf Course, a course located in the metro Vancouver area.

Anton Volchenkov receives free golf for the rest of the year @northlandsgc because of this. youtu.be/8A8ihdNfCnw

— Northlands GC (@NorthlandsGC) April 11, 2013

That, of course, is the hit Anton Volchenkov laid on Bruins forward Brad Marchand during Wednesday night's game in New Jersey. Volchenkov received a four-game suspension Thursday from the NHL, while the Marchand, an agitator who has drawn the ire of the rest of the league, is out indefinitely with what the Bruins deemed a "mild concussion."

Sweet offer, Northlands.

The golf course soon deleted the tweet.

After 794 games, 820 if you include the postseason, the most transparent falsehood in Boston sports will come to an end Wednesday night, weather permitting, and it will come wrapped complete with a rousing apathy.

The Red Sox’ sellout streak, a longtime farce perpetrated by the front office as a means of winning some sort of popularity contest that only it cared about, is finally over, barring any last-minute 7,000-ticket purchase from the Sox’ pals across the street over at Ace Tickets. But that’s not going to happen. The lie will mercifully come to an end on a drizzly evening at Fenway Park against the Baltimore Orioles.

Does anybody outside of 4 Yawkey Way care? In the least?

Of course, Red Sox CEO Larry Lucchino will predictably pander to the masses by telling the fans what a sense of pride they should have in one of sport’s longest-standing periods of packing the house. The embedded are already defending the streak, arguing that the “distribution” of tickets shouldn’t be a factor in determining how fake the sellout boast truly was. The Red Sox will tell those who doubt the genuine nature of the streak that they simply don’t understand the wild intricacies of what constitutes a “sellout.” Silly mortals.

I mean, call me stupid, but if you walk up to the box office during the game, have your choice of seats, and even better, are instructed to take the tickets for free, calling that game a “sellout” is a bit of a dubious approach. But much like the Liverpool-NASCAR-LeBron dynamics, I'm clearly too daft to comprehend the complexities of such remedial explanations by the Red Sox.

“I can understand the confusion,’’ Sam Kennedy, the team’s executive vice president, said last year, when a Globe report proved the much-ballyhooed pride of the team to be a complete fabrication. “But we operate by a definition that is commonly practiced throughout Major League Baseball and professional sports.’’

Ah, yes, the “distribution.”

Look, nobody is telling you anything new by saying that the sellout streak was a lie that rolled over from year to year. Who knows when the streak actually ended, but my guess is sometime around 2008. If that’s the case, we’ve been strung along on a fib for five years by the powers that be, which may seem a small matter, but in the grander scheme, it sort of makes you wonder where else the falsehoods have come from. Like Carl Crawford was a baseball decision, and not the result of a focus group survey.

But the good news is that it’s finally over, even if nobody cared about it to begin with. Sure, Larry, Tom, and John will clink champagne glasses in the owner’s box tonight to celebrate the wool held over the crowd’s eyes, but when the attendance is announced over the loudspeakers, the fact that the game is not a sellout should go over with about as much reaction as a harmless first-inning pop-up. But you know, the Red Sox being the Red Sox, there will be some urge to recognize the streak and have the fans give themselves a round of applause, giving glee to the gullible and nauseating the majority with common sense.

No longer do we have to hear about it. No longer do we have to mock it.

Gone will be the days when you couldn’t secure a ticket to a Red Sox game without paying the exorbitant fees over face value thanks to the legalized scalping that has infiltrated nearly every ticketed event this side of high school homecoming games. Red Sox fans still pay the highest prices in the major leagues, but for the time being, it is they who are having their way with the secondary market, where many prices remain below face value. Call it a little nugget of sweet revenge, if you will.

The fans, after all, are the ones who have finally won. Fed up with being insulted, lied to by the Red Sox brass, and hoodwinked into inferior marketing ploys, Boston fans delivered their message, and thus put an abrupt end to what Lucchino and Kennedy held so dear, for whatever reason.

Fans never had pride in the streak. Fans were fed up by it, forced to turn away from going to the ballpark thanks to skyrocketing prices and the “scarcity” of tickets. Where exactly is the pride in that?

The 2013 season has already begun with the most likeable Red Sox team in years, and it continues with an acknowledgement long overdue. Hallelujah.

Goodbye, sellout streak.

Good riddance.

As much as you might want to tell yourself otherwise, it’s not really difficult to choose a favorite Fenway opener.

There was the 1992 opener when a handful of us skipped our senior year high school classes (sorry Mrs. Dougal) to wait in line on Yawkey Way for standing room tickets. One of us accidentally dropped our sunglasses on the field during batting practice, and Brady Anderson tossed them into the stands haphazardly instead of simply handing them back. Frank Viola got rocked, lasted only three innings, and the Red Sox fell to the Orioles, 8-6. I also purchased the cassingle for XTC’s "Ballad of Peter Pumpkinhead" at Strawberries. Big day.

I was in Boston University’s journalism graduate program in 1999, when I made the last-second decision to skip afternoon classes and ran around the corner, purchasing a single grandstand seat just in time for pregame introductions. Troy O’Leary homered twice, and Bret Saberhagen got the win as the Sox shut out the White Sox, 6-0. Later in the evening, my girlfriend (now wife) and her roommates made fun of me for going solo. I think they were watching “Suddenly Susan” or something at the time.

One year earlier, it was the infamous Good Friday opener, when the Red Sox deemed the sale of beer unholy, leading to an early-morning onslaught of the bars and taverns in the immediate area, all open early for suds relief. We made it through the eighth, and the return of Dennis Eckersley, but with the Sox down 5-2, made the ignorant, youthful decision to fight for a cab earlier rather than later. It was only when our ride pulled up to our Medford digs, and we saw our neighbors across the street high-fiving each other that we learned what had happened.

“Mo won it with a grand slam,” they exclaimed.

“We were just there,” I whined.

“Well, you [expletive] up.”

Yup.

To date, that may have been one of the greatest Opening Days that Fenway Park had ever witnessed, even I didn’t. But clearly, nothing will ever top 2005, when the Red Sox received their World Series rings, and Mariano Rivera tipped his cap to the crowd, a genuine, unscripted moment that even the lame Terry Cashman couldn’t ruin.

Isn’t that perfect? For all the pomp, circumstance, and Broadway-style shenanigans the Red Sox brass continually insist to top themselves with when it comes to the home opener, the most memorable image came in a split-second of self-effacing humor from the enemy. Rivera may have forever endured himself to Red Sox fans for his performance in the ’04 ALCS, but that day showed a mutual respect that crossed the Evil Empire boundary. No home opener, at Fenway Park, or the future yard on the waterfront in 30 years or so, will ever top that day.

The game that afternoon was an afterthought, but Tim Wakefield was nails in shutting down the Yankees in an 8-1 win. Dougie went deep too.

In 2011, the Red Sox came into their Fenway Opener seeking their first win of the season after The Best Team Ever started the year 0-6. Down 2-0 in the bottom of the first, Dustin Pedroia defiantly hit a 1-1 pitch over the Wall in left, and rounded the bases with a determination we haven’t seen since…well, last week? Is that too hyperbolic?

It’s been nearly two years since there was a baseball product worthy of getting excited about in Boston, and though it’s only been a week, these 2013 Red Sox seem to have captured a certain percentage of the rooting population if only because of their approach to the game. That’s not to mean the way they work the count, pitch effectively, or navigate the bases, but if you saw the reaction to Koji Uehara’s dominant escape in Toronto Friday night, you saw something we haven’t seen here in some time: An excited group of players that seemingly have each other’s backs, playing and – gasp – enjoying baseball.

Yes, in the grand scheme of things, it’s a minor character to point out six games into the season, and of course, re-building chemistry was a primary mission for Ben Cherington in the offseason. But to see it come together so quickly and seem so genuine at this stage speaks to something. I don’t exactly remember the 2003-04 Red Sox bonding this immediately, if only because they themselves weren’t quite sure what or who (hello, Jeremy Giambi) they were.

These guys may not know “what” they are, but they may already have the “who” part down pat.

Fenway Park opens for its 102nd season Monday with the Sox taking on the Baltimore Orioles in what will likely be the final game of the long-standing, duplicitous “distribution” streak. It will be a new beginning on Wednesday evening, when a less-than-capacity crowd will be announced. Sox brass will pop champagne for the moment. Nobody else will care.

Not so for the product. Six games do not make a season, but fans are falling in like with this team, a difficult hurdle to propose after the disaster of 2012. Indeed, there may be hope after Bobby V.

Monday will be a home opener much like dozens upon dozens of others at Fenway, an anticipated afternoon that will likely be forgotten by the masses somewhere along the way. But maybe it’s your first. Maybe your Mom or Dad kept you out of school for the day so you could attend. Maybe you’re leaving work on a whim right now to see about grabbing a last-second ticket.

Opening Day in Boston is always worth it. But every single one will play second fiddle to Mariano. No over-the-top production can ever beat authenticity. And after two years of bloated cartoon characters, maybe the team has finally picked up a little bit of that trait as well.

Jaromir Jagr’s latest role may be savior of the Bruins’ power play woes (has a man-advantage that netted one shot on goal ever been as impressive as Boston’s first go-around with their new acquisition Thursday night against the Devils?), but in his homeland Czech Republic, he plays many roles for Sazka’s lottery campaign, including fire chief, pizza delivery guy, and Santa Claus. The above clip has to be the finest of the bunch, as a very happy Jaromir is hoodwinked into attending a birthday/bachelerotte party of some sort. Oh, Jaromir.

The pizza spot is a close second…

…as is his role as a super hero on the prowl.

They’re going to have to update this one with two new sweaters. It’s a pensive Jagr, though.

I’m not going to guess how much Jagr got paid for these 20 seconds of sleeping, but it’s probably worth every penny.

A very tired Santa.

More Saint Nick: Here’s Jagr dressed up as Santa in a commercial of good tidings overseas. Bonus points for the creepy-sounding narrator.

During his time with the Rangers, Jagr also lent his funny bone to some humorous spots in New York.

This kid never learns.

Your move, Boston ad agencies. We need more.

The American League East is 4-6.

Egads, that’s the worst combined record for a division in Major League Baseball. The AL Central is 6-4; West 7-7. In the NL, the East is 6-4; and the Central and West are both 5-6.

Clearly the prognosticators were correct in calling the AL East a weak division.

The Yankees are an utter mess. The Blue Jays are the second coming of the “Best Team Ever.” And there we have the Rays and Orioles middling around .500, neither team making an impact on the race.

Then, of course, atop the standings by a game over Tampa and Baltimore, two over Toronto and New York, even in the loss column, we have the spunky go-go Red Sox, trying to erase the past, determined not to quit until “order is restored.” In going 2-0 over the hapless Bronx Bummers, the 2013 Red Sox have thus far proven to be everything we hoped they would be: Spirited, gritty, and just a plain ol’ 180 from the slow march of death that defined Bobby V’s carnival of contention.

Consider that on April 4, the Red Sox lead the American League in runs scored (15) batting average (.329), OBP (.424), and stolen base percentage (Ok, 1 for 1, but whatever. Still better than Carl Crawford). And they’ve done it all without the aid of a home run, one of only four AL teams not to hit the ball out of the park. The other three teams are a combined 2-4 on the season.

Not your Red Sox, where magic happens.

The Sox are one of only six undefeated teams in Major League Baseball, and it’s the first time since the 1999 wild card champ Red Sox that Boston has gone 2-0 to start the season. Fourteen years. Jaromir Jagr was only 27 when it last happened.

It was also the first time the Yankees dropped their first two at home to start a season since 1982, the year New York second baseman Robinson Cano was born.

Oh, pish-posh all you can muster about two games being nothing in the grand scheme of a 162-game season (dwindling now, down to 160), but Baltimore went 2-0 to start 2012, and I remember seeing them in the playoffs, don’t you? (The World Series champion San Francisco Giants started 0-2, but you know, there’s an inconsistency everywhere sometimes.) Besides, after the last seven months of regular season baseball that fans have endured around here, not to mention the off-field drama, and nauseating sell jobs, it’s nice to just enjoy the game again.

There’s potential here with this team, a group of players that seemed to have meshed quickly in a way that we haven’t seen in some time. If on Monday, fans saw a sense of urgency and desire from these guys, in Game 2 they saw a workmanlike approach good enough to manufacture what they needed to win. That, and Hideki Kuroda’s pitching line was, 1-plus innings, E-E-K.

Jackie Bradley Jr. is going to win the MVP, Rookie of the Year, a Gold Glove, and the BBWAA Good Guy Award all in the same season. Shane Victorino (batting a sizzling .364) should challenge for the batting crown. Maybe David Ortiz will go on a tear when he returns in three weeks, maybe four, maybe 12, and challenge the likes of Josh Hamilton (who is hitless on the season, when does the ‘worst contract of the offseason' talk begin) for the home run title. Except, that it will probably go to Bradley, Jr., who we might as well pencil in for the Triple Crown as well.

OK, so it’s 2-0. But the 2011 Red Sox could have used that extra win, no? If only the Angels had Mike Trout to start last season, as the Sox decided to do with Bradley, Jr., what might have been for their playoff chances?

Let’s not make too much of it, but let’s not discount it either.

Baseball has been in the dregs here for so long, you can’t help but get a little amped over the start the Red Sox have had. Even if Lackey hasn’t pitched yet.

Two games into the season, the AL East has proven, so far, to be the weakest in baseball and up for grabs. The Red Sox are in complete control until otherwise noted.

On June 16, 1990, MC Hammer’s “U Can’t Touch This” peaked at No. 8 on the Billboard charts. Mike Boddicker won his eighth game and Wade Boggs hit his fourth home run of the season as the Red Sox beat the Baltimore Orioles, 6-3. England and the Netherlands tied, 0-0, in the World Cup, eventually won by West Germany.

The NHL Draft also took place. Jaromir Jagr was selected fifth overall by the Pittsburgh Penguins.

Not that Jagr is alone in that regard among active players. A certain Hall of Fame goalie still stopping pucks in New Jersey was selected 20th overall that same year (the Bruins selected a John Gruden 168th overall), and both Jagr (14 goals, 12 assists with Dallas) and Martin Brodeur (10-3, 2.27 GAA, .905 save percentage) continue to play at a level that is in no way indicative of being over the hill.

Jagr will walk into the Bruins’ dressing room Wednesday and immediately become the team’s fourth-highest scorer, tied with Tyler Seguin’s 26 points on the season. At 21, the Bruins' youngster is Jagr's junior by two decades.

Jagr’s six power play goals with the Stars this season are twice as many as Brad Marchand or Seguin have netted this season, a clear sign that the Bruins hope his acquisition can aid the ailing power play in a more dynamic way than say, oh, Tomas Kaberle, failed miserably at doing two seasons ago.

Jagr, acquired by Boston from Dallas for Lane MacDermind, Cody Payne, and a conditional second-round pick that will become a first should the Bruins reach the Eastern Conference finals, gives the Bruins line options that could dramatically improve what, to this point, has been only the 11th-highest scoring offense in the NHL, and the league’s worst power play (14 goals in 49 opportunities, a dismal 14.7 percent success rate). While he might seem a fit for the third line, odds are that Claude Julien tabs Jagr for the first line, where he’s played with fellow countrymate David Krejci, who also teamed up with Jagr during the 2010 Winter Olympics in British Columbia. That team finished seventh in the tournament, with each Krejci and Jagr adding a goal and three assists over five games for the Czech Republic.

Nathan Horton may have scored for the fourth straight game in last night’s thrilling 3-2 win over the Ottawa Senators, but dropping him to the third line spreads out the scoring threats, especially the way Julien rolls his lines. The first line is the second line, is the third line. What’s the diff?

Of course, the wild card in the way Julien sets up his lines for the stretch run is now the health of Patrice Bergeron, who left Tuesday night’s game after a collision with Colin Greening and did not return. At first glance, the possibility of a concussion appeared benign, but the fact that the standout Bruins center has suffered three prior concussions has to give the Bruins immediate pause for the long-term health of their franchise player. But make no mistake, if Bergeron is out, so too are the Bruins’ chances of making a Cup run. Jagr or no Jagr.

Still, with the win over Ottawa, the Bruins are now only one point behind the Montreal Canadiens for second place in the Eastern Conference. They don’t seem concerned north of the border though. In a survey conducted by the Montreal Gazette, only 34 percent of Habs fans wished the Canadiens had acquired Jagr in lieu of the Bruins. Saturday’s game in Montreal lingers.

Jagr arrives in Boston today, and should be suited up Thursday night against the New Jersey Devils at the Garden. Funny how that works out.

Maybe Brodeur will be in net, a reunion of the old draft class of 1990, still getting it done at the ages of 40-plus. The Devils have been floundering of late (nine overtime losses on the season), which puts into some perspective the struggles the Bruins have gone through the last month or so.

But the playoffs are on the horizon. And Jaromir Jagr, the greatest European scorer in NHL history, is going to be a part of them for the Boston Bruins. It’s a fascinating development that could a pivotal key ingredient for lasting into June.

I believe….

That the 2013 Red Sox will win 88 games and challenge for the second wild card spot.

That the Red Sox will get the second wild card slot.

That they will lose to the Angels in the ALDS.

That we won’t see David Ortiz step to the plate until June 14.

That Jackie Bradley, Jr. will be the most exciting player the Red Sox have seen since Jacoby Ellsbury burst on the scene in 2007.

That Bradley will be sent to Pawtucket on June 14.

That Ellsbury will play 79 games in his final season with the Red Sox.

That Bobby Valentine will attack at least one current Boston player between now and the end of the month.

That Red Sox starters will all have double digit win totals. Sixteen for Jon Lester, 13 for Clay Buchholz, 11 for Ryan Dempster, 10 for Felix Doubront, and 12 for John Lackey.

That Stephen Drew was the oddest signing of the winter.

That Shane Victorino is bound to become a Fenway favorite.

That Mike Napoli is going to have a Nick Esasky-type season, and will sign elsewhere in the offseason.

That the Nationals will beat the Angels in the World Series.

That the sellout streak will come to a crashing halt next week, and that nobody outside of the front office will be the least bit upset about it.

That Josh Beckett will win seven games for the Dodgers, and will visit the disabled list by the end of May.

That the AL East will look like this: 1. Rays. 2. Red Sox. 3. Blue Jays. 4. Yankees. 5. Orioles.

That the AL East will be far more competitive than people are giving it credit.

That the Red Sox will create mass nausea by playing “At Fenway” before every home game.

That Joe Maddon will be Manager of the Year. Mike Trout will be the AL MVP and everybody can relax.

That Joel Hanrahan will be a buckle-up roller coaster ride reminiscent of the days of bullpen by committee.

That Will Middlebrooks will be the first player to lash out at the media this season.

That the Red Sox will celebrate the six-year anniversary of their last World Series title at some point.

That a $5, 12 oz. draft isn’t really that great of a deal.

That the Red Sox will have you back in their good graces by the end of the month.

That everybody will claim they were among the 13,000 on hand the night Lackey throws a no-hitter.

That nobody can resist the attraction of the plaques.

That there, finally, is a lot to like about this team.

Totally believe that.

I really want to get excited about this Red Sox team. I do. I’m probably in the minority, but I think the starting five might surprise a lot of people, the bullpen is potentially nails, offensively…well, they may get by, and, most importantly, there is no more blundering clown driving the bus.

But, really, it is downright embarrassing to be a fan of this team.

Holy Dwayne Hosey is Brian Evans’ “At Fenway” video an abomination. From the opening cliché of a boy witnessing the green grass for the first time, to the overacting antics of Sir William Shatner (I'm surprised there are no kazoo sound effects), right down to the terrifically awful verses (“No matter where you sit, you're in heaven for a little bit” – a line Evans is apparently so proud of, he pull-quoted it on his website), the video speaks to everything wrong with the Red Sox franchise; over-orchestrated and completely numb to its perception amongst the fan base.

If you thought “Fenway 100” was the end of the ownership’s cradling and promoting the dump that is Fenway Park, you’re sorely mistaken. Bereft of any recognizable player that “alternative” hats can latch onto, the Red Sox, of course, inked gimpy David Ortiz to a two-year deal, and are forced to milk every nostalgic cent out of the ancient ballpark, now entering its 102nd baseball season. I imagine John, Tom (snapping his fingers to the beat, of course), and Larry sitting around a boardroom table watching this humiliation, giddy over the marketing possibilities.

And thus, Fenway Park continues its downward spiral into becoming an amusement park, a “living museum” as Larry Lucchino once coined it. It does after all, have more plaques than any other park in the majors. Probably. People wonder why fans reacted with disdain over the news that the team was cutting prices on beer and hot dogs for the month of April? Simple, it’s demeaning. That’s the sort of promotion they try to insult your intelligence with in Miami or Anaheim. We’re supposed to be better than that here.We'll be angry on our own dime, thank you.

In reality, we’re not better than any other franchise on the major league landscape. Red Sox owners have transformed the beloved franchise into something reviled, a vanilla experience that has been homogenized and disinfected with endless selling and overwhelming schmaltz. As one friend said to me in reaction to Evans’ train wreck, “Every time we think they have hit rock bottom, they go and top it.”

The concession cuts reeked of desperation, a last-ditch effort to attempt and prolong their pathetic “distribution” streak. But newsflash, the bandwagon jumpers of the past decade have moved on. To what, I really don’t care, but the Red Sox are now left with having to market this team to…gasp…baseball fans. The Dr. Charles fromage that has helped define this franchise for the better part of a decade is no longer going to go under the radar with a winning team. The 2013 Red Sox may be entertaining, heck, they may even compete for the second wild card spot. But the fans are simply no longer ignorant to the overwhelming insults that the Red Sox take them morons for. If this were 2008, “At Fenway,” would probably result with a shrug of the shoulders. In 2013, fans are fed up to the point that the team can’t even give them a free hot dog without anger dripping from the bloodshot eyes of apathy.

“No matter what the score, you won’t frown any more. The magic that you feel when you see the Red Sox take the field.”

Ugh.

What the hell just happened?

The sting of losing a wildly uneven game to the Montreal Canadiens Wednesday night was at least tempered as Bruins fans went to bed with the comforting thought that Calgary Flames captain Jarome Iginla indeed appeared like he was going to trade his burning “C” for a spoked “B,” a shrewd move by Boston GM Peter Chiarelli that would dramatically improve the Bruins’ offense.

By sunrise, the stark reality smacked them awake like one of Tyler Seguin’s smelling salts. Iginla is in Pittsburgh, traded for an inferior package, and leaving Boston with a 1-2 punch to the gut with only one point in the standings to show for it.

As if the Bruins’ 6-5 loss to the Canadiens weren’t painful enough, blowing a two-goal, third-period lead, and ultimately losing in a dreadful shootout, Boston lost out on their guy by no fault of its own. The Bruins reportedly offered Calgary a package that included defenseman Matt Bartkowski, 19-year-old center Alexander Khokhlachev, and a first-round draft pick. But Iginla has a no-movement clause, and he told Flames GM Jay Feaster that he’d rather play for the Penguins.

The cost? Two college kids and a first-round draft pick.

If anyone should be most frustrated about how things went down Wednesday night, it should be Calgary Flames fans, first and foremost. The Flames reportedly preferred the Boston offer, but bowed to the wishes of their franchise player and took one that paled in comparison. Wasn’t this supposed to be about building for the future instead of patting the guy on the back on his way out the door? Owner Murray Edwards and Feaster are sure to be roasted today north of the border for not getting significant value in return for their franchise player.

Not to mention, why exactly the urgency to make the deal a week before the deadline? If it was a case of them bowing to the athlete’s demands, then maybe Iginla isn’t really the type of dressing room presence the Bruins ultimately want.

So, now do the Bruins turn their attention south to Tampa Bay, much like they did in 2009 when they acquired veteran Mark Recchi at the trading deadline? There are some, like the Globe’s Kevin Paul Dupont, who preferred chasing Lightning veteran Martin St. Louis over Iginla in the first place, even at the age of 37 and signed for two more seasons. St. Louis’ 42 points would place him far and away as the Bruins’ top scorer this season, and his eight goals would be just behind Nathan Horton, Patrice Bergeron, Tyler Seguin, and Brad Marchand. The former University of Vermont standout would also give the Bruins another dynamic veteran presence, much like Recchi was during his pivotal time here.

Jaromir Jagr may be 41, but the ageless wonder is still playing at such a high level that the Dallas Stars may be talking about an extension with him. That seems a little odd for a player of his age, and one would have to figure the price to land him in Boston wouldn’t be outrageous. But the glaring need for more than a scoring forward was evident Wednesday night, when the Habs took a 2-1 season series lead on the Bruins, who out-shot the Canadiens 41-28, only to ultimately watch Brendan Gallagher score the only goal in a shootout that might as well have been sponsored by “Waiting for Godot.”

Edmonton’s Ryan Whitney is an intriguing name, yet, fair or unfair, I can’t get this thought out of my head when it comes to trading for veteran Massachusetts-bred players (and really, looking back, that season wasn’t really as bad as we all made it out to be at the time). Ottawa is only four points behind the Bruins, so landing Sergei Gonchar seems a little unrealistic, and the same would seem true of Winnipeg's Ron Hainsey, but with Johnny Boychuk now on injured reserve, and Adam McQuaid out for what likely amounts to the rest of the regular season, the Bruins desperately need help on defense. Unless you think Torey Krug is the answer.

There’s less than a week for Chiarelli to shake out all the particulars, but any criticism directed his way for not getting the Iginla deal done is foolhardy. By most accounts, he had the better offer on the table. Iginla wanted to go to Pittsburgh, where he will reunite with former Olympic teammate Sidney Crosby, whom he set up for the game-winning goal in the 2010 gold medal game in British Columbia. Not sure that any semblance of a counter offer was going to change that, or deny the temptation to reunite with Crosby. Iginla was doing what was good for Iginla at that point, not the Flames.

Ten seconds remained in the game. The Bruins were going to throttle two points over the Canadiens in the Eastern Conference standings, and they were going to land prized trading commodity Jarome Iginla. Inexplicably, neither happened, and it has left the front office, players, and coaching staff reeling, wondering where it all went wrong, and more imperatively, how to fix it.

If you missed the diving competition show on ABC Tuesday night, don’t fret. There should be plenty more plunges to catch on NESN Wednesday night.

It has been twenty-four days since the Bruins and Montreal Canadiens have tangled, a 4-3 win by Montreal on March 3 that ended with Bruins coach Claude Julien calling out the Habs for their embellishing ways, and Montreal’s Max Pacioretty labeling the Bruins “jealous” over looking up at them in the standings. Since then, the Bruins have gone 7-4-1 through their knit-tight March schedule. The Canadiens have gone 6-3-1, including a 1-0 loss to the red-hot Pittsburgh Penguins Tuesday night that allowed the 21-7-3 Bruins to sneak past 20-7-5 Montreal for the Northeast Division lead.

Indeed, jealously is on the line.

Oh, what sorts of antics will Les Habitants bring to the rink this time around? Will it be PK Subban doing his best Nicole Eggert impression? Is Alexei Emelin up for another cheap shot on Tyler Seguin, or did the hulking response from Zdeno Chara moot that a one-time infraction? Will the referees recall Julien’s comments after the loss earlier this month and keep a closer eye on any possible ornamentation on the Canadiens’ part?

Don’t bet on it. Much as was the case earlier this month, the Canadiens still lead the NHL in power play opportunities with 139, eight more than the Detroit Red Wings despite having played one fewer game. The Bruins, with 86 opportunities, are dead-last in the league. In the 12 games since these two last met, Boston has had 27 power play opportunities. Montreal has had 39 in 10 games.

"This is embarrassing for our game, the embellishing,” Julien said following his team’s loss to Montreal on March 3. "Right now, they’ve got over 100 power plays so far. It’s pretty obvious why. We’re trying to clean that out of our game. It’s got to be done soon. Because it’s not about tonight. It’s about the game. The embellishment embarrasses our game. We’ve got to be better about that. It’s pretty obvious when P.K. [Subban] gets hit, he throws himself into the glass and holds his head. You know what? We start calling those things for embellishment, maybe teams stop doing it. Until we take charge that, it’s going to be an issue.”

Yet, since that speech, the Canadiens have garnered an average of 3.9 power plays per game compared to the Bruins’ 2.25. Bottom line, expect the Canadiens to be the Canadiens Wednesday night at the Garden.

This is where Monday’s shootout win over the Toronto Maple Leafs comes into such importance. Had the Bruins fell in that game, a contest in which they battled back from an 0-2 deficit, the Canadiens would come in with Boston having dropped four of its last five, with even more questions lingering as we hurtle toward next Wednesday’s NHL trading deadline. The Bruins still need more scoring prowess and a healthy defensive corps if they hope to go deep into the playoffs, especially the way the Penguins, winners of 13 straight, appear to be taking charge of the East both on the ice and the transaction wire.

On that note, however, Bruins general manager Peter Chiarelli went on 98.5 The Sports Hub this morning, and said no way, no how, will the team be trading goalie prospect Malcolm Subban, perhaps thought to be a key ingredient in any pursuit of Calgary captain Jarome Iginla.

“I could tell you this, I’m not trading Malcolm Subban,” Chiarelli said. “He’s young, a very good goalie prospect and I see him being a big part of our future. We have some goalie depth, but I can tell you I’m not trading Malcolm Subban.”

So, there’s that. Maybe. We’ll see in a week if Chiarelli may have been posturing.

Wednesday night’s matchup against the Canadiens would have been a nice spot for Iginla to immerse himself in Boston-Montreal hockey culture. What better way would there have been for him to be introduced to the intensity of this rivalry, both teams coming into the game with 45 points and even more chips on their shoulders? The two teams meet for the final time in Montreal on April 6, and whether or not Iginla is in tow with Boston, the Bruins should have at least some new pieces to play with.

Only 17 games remain in this shortened regular season, and few will be as important or as entertaining as the remaining pair against the Canadiens, and tilts against Ottawa and Pittsburgh. There’s no team Bruins fans love to hate more than the Habs, who bring their gutless style of hockey to the Garden Wednesday, served with a fine whine.

As far as reality shows are concerned, the most intriguing thing about ABC’s “Splash” is how a celebrity diving show this bad ever made it to the air in the first place, never mind Louie Anderson’s presence. But having a terrible premise hasn’t stopped the networks from airing the product before.

Nor has it stopped the Montreal Canadiens.

That’s Jarome Iginla scoring the winning goal Sunday night for the Calgary Flames, who won only their twelfth game of the season, 3-2, over the St. Louis Blues. Normally, a late-weekend hockey contest between a pair of dregs of the Western Conference wouldn’t muster much attention in Boston, but with the NHL trading deadline (a national holiday in Canada) only 10 days away, all eyes are on Calgary and what the Flames ultimately decide to do with their veteran captain.

According to multiple reports, the Bruins are one of a handful of teams in on acquiring the 35-year-old Iginla, whose 22 points this season would place him third on Boston, tied with Tyler Seguin. According to TSN, Iginla has submitted a list of four teams he would waive his no-movement clause for: Pittsburgh, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Boston – the last four Stanley Cup winners, for what it’s worth.

Wipe the drool from your mouth.

Theoretically, that list is down to three with the Penguins acquiring Brendan Morrow from the Dallas Stars over the weekend after failing to come to an agreement with Calgary. Morrow is a guy that the Bruins were allegedly in on, but let’s be frank; aren’t you sort of glad he went to Pittsburgh, paving a less-crowded avenue for Iginla, a name that Bruins fans have been muttering since the beginning of this shortened season?

The cost? Uh, steep. According to The Globe and Mail, Calgary asked the Penguins for a top-four defense prospect, a draft pick, and a player off the team’s roster. The Penguins said, “No thanks.”

So, what does that mean for Boston? Translate that to what the Bruins can offer, and let’s just say it’s Torey Krug, a draft pick, and Rich Peverley. Do you make that trade? Yup.

Alas, it won’t be that easy. That’s not discounting Peverley’s importance in a Bruins sweater, but acquiring a player like Iginla for a team that was in need of some offensive firepower even before Chris Kelly went down for what is likely the remainder of the regular season with a broken tibia. For a superstar like Iginla, you sacrifice Peverley. Of course, there could also be the bigger shoe to drop by sending Milan Lucic to Calgary in the deal, a prospect that would have polarizing reaction within a Bruins fan base that is continually frustrated by his lack of awareness in stretches. After his role in Saturday night’s loss to the Leafs, the Bruins could have traded Lucic for a bowl of pasta overnight and it probably would have elicited knee-jerk applause from the general public Sunday morning.

However, the name that has been most bandied about when it comes to the theory of landing Iginla is Bruins goalie prospect Malcolm Subban, the team’s first-round draft pick in 2012. The 19-year-old Subban has star potential, like his brother in Montreal, but he remains a raw project between the pipes that is probably at least three years away. There is the percolating thought that the team is ready to wrap up a five-year deal for starting goalie Tuukka Rask in the near future, and despite Saturday night’s hiccup against the Toronto Maple Leafs, 26-year-old Anton Khudobin has thus far proven to be a steal by GM Peter Chiarelli.

By the time Subban is ready to take over, the Bruins’ championship window with this core group may have already closed. Yes, even with the understanding that Boston goalie prospects are sure things (No disrespect, Hannu Toivonen), I’d be willing to cut ties with the kid for a veteran scoring presence like Iginla.

Let’s face it, this Bruins team, as constituted right now, doesn’t have enough to make a deep playoff run but is only a piece or two away. Kelly is gone until later next month, David Krejci is clearly playing hurt, the defense has been suspect at key moments, and the inconsistencies have finally encouraged Claude Julien to shake up his lines in practice Sunday, sending Brad Marchand to the top line, and Lucic to the third. Clearly, this isn’t the same team we saw burst out of the gate.

Maybe Chiarelli can pull off deals for lesser-appreciated commodities, like he did with Peverley and Kelly two years ago, but for a team with a chance to win its second Cup in three years, with cap space, being in the hunt for Jarome Iginla is simply too good to pass up despite the cost. Draft picks, prospects, or a share in Delaware North, whatever. With Iginla, the Bruins would be a much more dynamic hockey team. Not to go all Ray Bourque on you, but Iginla would bring that veteran determination of finally winning the Cup.

As long as the rights to this nifty little number come back east too.