Lost B: Vladimir Sobotka skates away

I spent most of the day Saturday watching the second round of the draft and stressing over the Marc Savard trade rumors. Then I received this Tweet from the Bruins:

GM Peter Chiarelli just announced that the Bruins have acquired unsigned draft choice David Warsofsky in exchange for Vladimir Sobotka.

And I cried.

I cried over the Bruins losing Vladimir Sobotka, a little guy with a huge heart, a guy who hits like like a freight train.

The big man in a little man’s body. Or, as he has been dubbed on the Web, the SOB. The Little Ball of Hate. A pest, but not a punk, who plays the game the right way. I always thought of him as a minature bull, charging around, hitting anything bigger than him. Which was pretty much everything.

Used sparingly, moved from role to role (set-up center; checking center; wing), never logging enough ice time, up and down from Providence to Boston, he hung in there and finally got a chance to shine in the first round of the playoffs this year, driving the Sabres mad. Unfortunately, he aggravated a shoulder injury late in the series and was consequently robbed of his effectiveness against Philadelphia, one of myriad (but unreported) Bruins injuries. Sobotka’s ineffectiveness against Philly was ignored in the rush to scream about the Bruins’ collapse, but it was a factor.

And now he’s gone. And the worst part of it, beyond losing a player who was born to wear the Spoked B, is that next to nobody cares. “Garbage in, garbage out,” one message board poster wrote.

How sad. How wrong. How cavalier, not only to disparage a player who laid it on the line every time he stepped on the ice, but to dismiss the feelings of those of us who love him.

Take good care of him, St. Louis. Appreciate him, because he’ll give you everything he’s got. He can’t play any other way.

Photo: Courtesy of swerve/bestlaidplans.org.