With a 6-4 win over Ottawa last Thursday, the Bruins finished the first half of the 2008-09 NHL season. And what a fist half it has been. Through the first 41 games the B’s sit atop the Eastern Conference, all while bring back remembrance of the big bad Black and Gold of days past. While the Bruins were filling the net with a league leading 154 goals, the fans were filling the seats and getting their money’s worth. Big hits, big goals, and fights galore reminded fans of the Bruins of the past. Whether it’s Milan Lucic doing his best Cam Neely impersonation, or Phil Kessel lighting the lamp in the same fashion Phil Esposito once did, your Boston Bruins are back in the main stay of Boston sports.

At this point last year, not much was said about the Bruins. They were just another professional team in Boston and very ordinary in the NHL. All the story lines were on the Patriots going for a perfect season while in the playoffs, the Celtics Big Three tarring apart the NBA, and Hot Stove reports surrounding the Red Sox.  It wasn’t for another couple of months later when the Bruins gave the city a glimpse of what hockey was going to be like from there on out. The B’s got Causeway St. excited about hockey again with an amazing game 6 win over the Habs in last years Stanley Cap playoffs. Losing game seven was only part of the foundation set by the Bruins, as a number of their young nucleus got to experience the NHL playoffs for the first time.

Sobotka recalled to Bruins" class="imgcaption floatr" style="float: right;" />With the trade of Andrew Alberts and the injury to Chuck Kobasew, the Bruins have called up Vladimir Sobotka and Matt Hunwick from Providence of the AHL. Kobasew suffered another set back in his injury plagued career with a broken ankle. He is should be out for 3 weeks.

GM Peter Chiarelli shed sone light on the Alberts trade in his blog on bostonbruins.com.

"We made a move yesterday to trade Andrew Alberts to Philadelphia. There are a lot of components, or reasons, behind that trade - and I will share a couple of them with you."

"Maybe the biggest one was to open up some spots for some young guys (Sobotka and Hunwick) who we called up this morning. Secondly, you have to be very proactive in this system and you have to move early on things. We weren’t going to re-sign Andrew, so we figured we’d better preserve the asset, so to speak, and get something back."

With Kobasew out and Alberts out of town, this left the door wide up for Sobotka and Hunwick.

Hunwick spent the majority of the 07-08 season in Providence where he earned 23 points in 55 games.  He was recalled to Boston on four separate occasions last year and tallied one assist in 13 games.  Sobotka tallied two goals and two assists in the first two games for the P-Bruins this year.  He split the 2007-2008 season between Boston and Providence, and with Boston, saw action in 48 regular season games, contributed one goal and six assists and added two goals in six postseason games. 

Boston Bruins General Manager Peter Chiarelli announced today that the club has traded defenseman Andrew Alberts to the Philadelphia Flyers in exchange for forward Ned Lukacevic and a fourth round pick in the 2009 NHL Entry Draft.  The 2009 fourth round pick becomes a 2009 third round pick if the Flyers resign Alberts at the end of his contract which expires on June 30, 2009.

Alberts played collegiately for Boston College from 2001–2005 with a total of 66 points and 243 penalty minutes in 149 career college games.He was then drafted by the Bruins in the fourth round (179th overall) in the 2001 Entry Draft. Alberts played in 181 games for the Bruins during his three-plus years with the club, notching one goal, 18 assists and 231 penalty minutes.  This season Alberts couldn’t seem to crack the starting line up. He was a healthy scratch in the Bruins first two games of the 2008-2009 season.

The new guy, 22-year-old Lukacevic played 61 games for Reading of the East Coast Hockey League and tallied 17 goals and 19 assists last year.  He will not see time in Boston in the near future. He stands at 6-0 and 200 pound and is from Podgorica, Serbia. In three-plus professional seasons split between Reading (ECHL) Manchester (American Hockey League) and Philadelphia (AHL),  played in 126 games, recording 61 points and 99 penalty minutes.  Originally drafted in the fourth round (110th overall) in the 2004 NHL Entry Draft by the Los Angeles Kings, Lukacevic was dealt to the Flyers in a deal that brought the Kings Denis Gauthier.

Boston Bruins General Manager Peter Chiarelli announced today five roster moves: forwad Peter Schaefer has been released from the club and will be placed on waivers for purpose of assignment to Providence (AHL), forwards Nate Thompson and Jeremy Reich have been placed on waivers for purpose of assignment to Providence (AHL), defenseman Matt Hunwick has been assigned to Providence (AHL), and forward Carl Soderberg has been assigned to Malmo (Sweden2).

Releasing Schaefer means that rookie Blake Wheeler has moved a step closer to earning one of the 23 spots on the Bruins’ roster. His play throughout the pre-season has impressed many.

Chiarelli talked about the decision to waive Schaefer at length.

“Yah, it was difficult with (Schaefer),” said the GM. “I had a history with him in Ottawa and I brought him in here and it wasn’t working out.

“And I know he’s a good player, (but) these things happen.

“We talked yesterday, it was a good talk, and he may end up in another NHL city or he may end up in Providence,” he said.

Chiarelli was asked if he sensed a lot of disappointment from the veteran forward.

“Well, he’s been in the league a while,” said Chiarelli. “I think he knew what was coming, especially with the play of Wheeler.

“So he pretty much expected it is what he told me.

“But he was disappointed that it didn’t work out here,” he said.