This is going to sound like sour grapes from a Boston fan but I don't give a shit.
Ritchie is one of the worst players I've seen in a Bruins sweater in a long time. He routinely made me question what it meant to be a Boston fan, he tested my patience and my ability to root for my boys on a routine basis.
I can excuse a lot, that's what sports fandom is, right? It's a place to be biased and petty and stupid in a safe little sandbox of biased petty stupidity. But suck me sideways Thick Dick Nick made it a chore. I can handle guys lacking talent but playing with heart, I can handle a lack of heart in crazy talented guys, I can handle the staggering room temperature milk mediocrity of guys like Lee Stempniak, but Thick Dick Nick is none of those things.
He plays the game like someone trying to egg you on into taking a swing at him. He skates with the urgency of an old lady shopping for canned beats, but with half the speed. His hockey IQ is on par with Brett Favre's. I'm assuming Brett Farve has never played hockey, correct me if I'm wrong. Nick constantly skates around like he's surprised he's at an NHL game and then glides back to the bench (probably from the penalty box for a stick infraction) with the dim look of Lenny from Of Mice and Men. Then he sits there like a melting chocolate Santa, with his hair inexplicably sticking up through the vent in his helmet, waiting to be surprised by his next turn to get on the ice.
Consider this: He scored 15 goals last year, found some dangerous ice as a PP scorer, and Bruins fans were debating if he would be a good 4th liner or not this year, because our 4th line was that fucking bad, and Ritchie was the only skater who could conceivably make it worse. He scored 15 goals for us and we weren't sure if he would be a good replacement for Chris fucking Wagner, the surly hobbit of the TD garden.
Nick Ritchie is a bigger contributor to the decline in cardiovascular health in Boston fans than smoking and obesity. He's the equivalent of a double bacon cheeseburger on your system. He is hockey diarrhea. The guy takes the stupidest retaliatory penalties you've ever seen. He is complete invisible until you need a momentum swing, goes "Got ya boss" and cross checks someone in the neck and bumbles off the ice like Abbott and/or Costello while simultaneously shrugging and bitching to the refs and the guy he blindsided.
I'm sure he's not a bad guy IRL, I don't mean for this to be a character assassination. I'm sure he has family and besides Brett they probably don't suck. This isn't about kicking a player on their way out; let the record reflect that every Boston fan has a few memories of cursing his name and that we started kicking him long before he was down. (See also the general well wishes for Kuraly upon his departure.)
Nick isn't a goon, he's a bad boyfriend. He'll score a couple of goals one week and you'll think he's turned a corner and then he'll hit on one of your friends and tell you to chill out because he's just being friendly. Don't buy the hype, be fucking aware.
I am ecstatic that Ritchie wasn't held onto as a sunk cost, and that Toronto signed him. There you go, that's your analysis.
