Looking to avenge a Meadowlands collapse from a few games prior, the Bruins fell flat against the Devils in a snowbound TD Banknorth Garden. Conditions were so bad outside that the B's did the unthinkable: slashed ticket prices! Loge seats that are usually near $100 were cut down to $19.50, so I had to take Mr. Jacobs up on his offer. Some friends and I made up 6 of maybe about 4,500 people in attendance. Ouch.
This game started off pretty well, with the Bruins getting their legs back under them from the previous night's flight home from Atlanta. I was expecting a flat start from the team, but they seemed pretty well prepared. The highlight of the first came from Milan Lucic, who dropped the gloves against New Jersey's David Clarkson. The bout started off fairly slowly, but in the end Lucic rocked Clarkson with two wicked right hands, leaving Clarkson looking over at the referee in an attempt to stop the fight. Luckily for him, he got his wish, and Lucic came away with another resounding victory.
In the second, the defensive tone of the game continued, until Brian Gionta snuck a snap shot past Auld the Bald, who got beaten five-hole. I'm not sure how I feel about this one, as it seems like it was a shot that could have been stopped. Either way, the Devils seized on this goal to get some momentum and some power play chances. With Andrew Alberts off for a high-sticking double minor, Zdeno Chara took a "questionable" slashing call, putting the Bruins down 2 men (and 2 of their biggest defensemen, at that). In this situation, it was only a matter of time before New Jersey capitalized, and that they did on a wicked shot from Jamie Langenbrunner that The Bald had no chance on.
With Martin Brodeur in net, a two goal lead is usually enough, and that was the case in this game for the Devils. The Bruins were able to get a power play strike from Marc Savard early in the third, but didn't do much after that. They were given another power play opportunity about halfway through the period, and again didn't generate many chances. Langenbrunner sealed the deal with his empty netter, and the Bruins lost to the Devils for the second time this season.
There weren't really many positive things to take from this game. One thing I liked was the line of Schaefer-Kessel-Lucic. They were out there ####ing all night, creating chances and putting on pressure. They seem to be almost a more skilled version of an energy line, and I'd like to see them get some more playing time together in the next game.
As far as Auld the Bald goes, he had to lose one sometime. He didn't play poorly, and came up with some big saves that kept his team in it. However, when you're opposing Martin Brodeur, a questionable goal can lead to a loss, and being stuck facing a 5-3 isn't going to help. Hopefully, Auld can bounce back in his next start, whenever that may be.
GOALS
Boston- Marc Savard (8)
New Jersey- Brian Gionta (10), Jamie Langenbrunner (3,4)
SAVES
Boston- Alex Auld, 25 saves on 27 shots
New Jersey- Martin Brodeur, 19 saves on 20 shots
NEXT GAME: Saturday, December 15 vs. Columbus Blue Jackets, 7:00 PM EST
The Alex Auld show rolled into Buffalo tonight, with the B's looking for their second straight win over a Northeast division opponent. The HSBC Arena has not been kind to the B's in recent years, as Sabres goalie Ryan Miller had never lost to the B's in that arena, and had never allowed more than 3 goals in any of those games. However, this was all in the past, and the B's showed no signs of letting Miller continue his streak. They jumped out to an early 2-1 lead, and ended up outlasting the Sabres to get that second straight win, 4-1. I missed the first period due to a final exam, but was pleased to see that they had jumped out to a 3-1 lead.
From what I saw, the B's, and Auld in particular, played really well. Auld was huge in the net, and seemed to be in the right place at the right time for every Sabres' scoring chance. It seemed like Milan Lucic played one of his best games of the season so far, and was on the scoresheet with two assists. Phil Kessel showed some flashes of his great speed again, and seemed to have an extra jump in his step tonight. The defense played well also, not allowing too many odd man rushes or any good shooting lanes. The B's had a great penalty kill early in the second after Matt Hunwick took a tripping penalty, and kept the Sabres off of the board with some good, hard work, from PJ Axelsson in particular.
The offense seemed to be pretty strong too, generating some good scoring chances with hard work deep in the zone. Overall, a great game from the B's, and great to see Alex Auld get another big win for the team. On to Atlanta we go...
GOALS
Boston- Marc Savard (6), PJ Axelsson (4), Peter Schaefer (5), Glen Metropolit (7)
Buffalo- Jaroslav Spacek (7)
SAVES
Boston- Alex Auld, 44 saves on 45 shots
Buffalo- Ryan Miller, 17 saves on 21 shots
NEXT GAME: Wednesday, December 12 @ Atlanta Thrashers, 7 PM EST
The B's headed out to Long Island for another match-up with Ted Nolan's bunch, and got out of there with their first win on the island in over 5 years. It was good to see Milan Lucic get back on the ice and play decently well, though he didn't get on the scoresheet at all. Petteri Nokelainen was flying around the ice for the entire game, and has looked really good in his last couple of games. He scored on a bad play by the Isles' d-man, but he still had to put it past DiPietro.
Glen Murray continued his hot streak with the first goal on the power play, and Chuck Kobasew added his team leading 11th goal. Tim Thomas played another good game, and was only 2 minutes away from a shutout when he gave up a goal on the penalty kill. The B's still need to work hard at their penalty kill, which has been an Achilles' heel all season. They killed four out of five, however, so hopefully improvement is on the way.
Overall, this team is playing well, and may be playing its best hockey of the year so far. Marc Savard has a 10 game point streak, and the offense shows signs of coming to life. Thomas continues to play well in net, and Rask has shown that he can shoulder some of the load as well, and will likely start one of the next three games. The game tomorrow against New Jersey should be interesting, as Jersey is always a tough place to play. If the B's don't beat Montreal on Thursday, I'm going to go nuts. But, they are playing good hockey, and are 4 points behind Ottawa for first in the Northeast.
So it was finally here. The long-awaited rematch. The "Win One for Patrice" game. The Bruins and the Flyers, renewing hostilities after the Flyers derailed not only the Bruins season but a young kid's life last time these two teams met. Fans had been anticipating roughhousing, fighting, hitting and all around old time hockey. However, as some may have predicted, the game wasn't as wild as some had hoped. The only fight of the game didn't involve Randy Jones, but Jeremy Reich and Ben Eager. I am a little disappointed that Jones didn't really face any music for what he did to Bergeron, accident or not. However, shutting up 20,000 Philadelphians is sweet enough music for any Bruins fan.
I didn't see the first half of the game, due to a night class, but I saw from about the middle of the second period on. The Bruins played well, and outplayed Philly for most of the night. One of my favorite moments of the game came in the third period, when the Bruins killed any momentum the Flyers had by holding the puck in the Philly end for about 2 minutes, putting constant pressure on Antero Nittymaki. The pressure culminated in a slashing penalty to my least favorite player of all time, Daniel Briere. The B's didn't score, but did squash any attempts at Philly comeback. I was also pleased to see the B's respond quickly to Philly's 2nd goal, scoring a little over a minute later.
Overall, this was a great game for the Bruins. The Flyers are a very good team, and the Bruins beat them in their own building, in front of a sold out crowd. The B's didn't let their emotions from the first game of the season series get the better of them, and managed to play their game and take the Flyers down. Tuukka Rask played a decent game, but wasn't really anything special. He wasn't challenged much, but made the saves when he needed to. The 3rd goal, to Upshall, was pretty soft, and Rask probably should have had it. Overall, however, he looked composed again, a good sign for the Bruins. They'll need him in the upcoming weeks, as they have a pretty full slate coming up.
It's also good to see Glen Murray continue to play well. He had two more goals, raising his season total to 6. Marc Savard had another stellar offensive night with a goal and two assists, and Brandon Bochenski played well again, getting on the scoresheet with an assist on the fifth Boston goal.
Again, overall, this was a great win. The B's travel next to face an extremely inconsistent Florida Panthers team, so let's hope the B's can get another win and get on a bit of a roll here on this road trip.
GOALS
Boston- Glen Murray (5,6), Marc Savard (5), Glen Metropolit (5), Peter Schaefer (4), Chuck Kobasew (10)
Philadelphia- Mike Knuble (7), Mike Richards (14), Scottie Upshall (5)
SAVES
Boston- Tuukka Rask, 20 saves on 23 shots
Philadelphia- Martin Biron, 11 saves on 14 shots::Antero Nittymaki, 15 saves on 17 shots
NEXT GAME: Thursday, November 29 @ Florida Panthers, 7:30 PM EST
The Bruins came out pretty flat in the second game of this home and home series, and honestly deserved this loss. They were winning most of the game, but were unable to hold off the Isles offensive attack, and were unable to do much down in Rick DiPietro's end. This was a very frustrating game to watch as a Bruins fan, because they couldn't get anything going, and it almost felt like it was only a matter of time before the B's lost the lead.
As far as bright spots, there weren't many. It was good to see PJ Axelsson get on the board again, on a great pass from Marc Savard. Tim Thomas played another pretty good game, but the Andy Hilbert goal was pretty soft. He should have had that one. Other than that, this game sucked for the Bruins. Claude Julien said the B's were "outworked", and that's kind of an understatement. The players are in for one hell of a practice after this one.
GOALS
Boston- PJ Axelsson (2)
New York- Andy Hilbert (1), Richard Park (2)
SAVES
Boston- Tim Thomas, 27 saves on 29 shots
New York- Rick DiPietro, 20 saves on 21 shots
NEXT GAME: Monday, November 26, @ Philadelphia Flyers, 7:00 PM EST
For this game against the Leafs, a friend and I were able to
walk down to the Garden 10 minutes before the game and grab two tickets off of
a scalper for face value. I guess that’s one of the perks of little interest in
a team. I was actually pretty surprised with this game’s attendance, as there
were probably around 15-16,000 people there.
The Bruins came out flying in this
game, with 2 shots in the first nine seconds of the game on “old friend” Andrew
Raycroft. They then scored 19 seconds in, on a nice one-timer off of the
faceoff. It was nice to see the offense finally come to life in this game, even though a few of the goals that Raycroft let in were suspect at best.
Apparently Peter Schaefer and Brandon Bochenski read this blog, because they certainly have been playing better since being invisible against Montreal. Schaefer contributed 2 goals and an assist, while Bochenski added 2 assists. The Bochenski-Metropolit-Schaefer line proved to be the best on the ice all night, so it's good to see the two of them are coming around. Maybe I should call players out more often?
As far as other aspects of this game, it was good to see the B's overcome some adversity. They twice allowed the Leafs to get within a goal, even after starting so strongly. However, they kept calm, and eventually just outplayed and overpowered Toronto.
Other quick notes from the game:
Tim Thomas continued to play well, as he was big in holding off late Toronto rushes. He made a few great saves, and the first Toronto goal was a little fluky, as it came off of a weird deflection over the back of the net. It was a good goal by Kyle Wellwood, but the deflection that led to it was kind of fluky. There was one save later in the game on the power play where Jason Blake whirled and fired a shot from the faceoff dot that Thomas was right in front of, positioning himself perfectly. He seems to have better instincts this year, and isn't out of position as much. Let's hope this kind of play continues.
The penalty kill was strong in this game, as the Leafs were able to set up their umbrella pretty well, but couldn't do much else. They had their five men set up well in the zone, but the Bruins settled into their box around the net and blocked all passing lanes. The Leafs got some shots on goal, but very rarely had a good opportunity to score.
Milan Lucic's fight with Mark Bell was one of the more lopsided I've seen this year. Bell seemed to be looking to the refs to stop the fight at one point, after Lucic connected with a strong right hand to his face. I don't know Bell as a fighter, and he may have been in over his head in this one.
It was good to see the offense come back, especially after Claude Julien said they worked hard on it in practice all week. It's good to see the players responding positively to their coach, and working hard to fix their problems.
Hopefully the progress can continue, and the offense will remain strong. The game coming up against Montreal is a big one, as the team needs to respond strongly after that horrible performance last week.
GOALS
Boston- Marc Savard (4), Marco Sturm (8), Glen Metropolit (3), Peter Schaefer (2,3)
After this game, the phrase "a win is a win" seems fitting. Yes, the Bruins won, but they were outplayed for most of the game. Tim Thomas had to make 45 saves to win this one, and he was up to the task. As is true in most sports, momentum can change very quickly, and we saw that firsthand in this game. Buffalo turned the puck over at the attacking blue line, and compounded that problem with a bad line change. This led to a two on one with Marc Savard and Marco Sturm, and Savard put a fantastic pass right on Sturm's tape. All he had to do was flick it past Ryan Miller, and he had his 7th goal of the season.
So just like that, after all of the pressure Buffalo applied, the Bruins had the lead. They kept their heads above the water, but let up another shorthanded goal to tie the game. The way the Sabres scored that goal made it seem like THEY were on the power play, not the penalty kill. However, the Bruins kept up just enough of an offensive attack to take the lead on a highlight reel goal by Chuck Kobasew. Kobasew called it a "fluke", but he did a great job of deflecting the puck past Miller to give the B's the lead for good.
The Sabres kept up the pressure, however, and Tim Thomas was good enough to hold off the charge. The Bruins still need to tighten up their defense big time, as 46 shots is way too many to allow. Thankfully, they got the win, and were able to get back on the right track after such a horrible game against Montreal.
I fell behind in these game stories, which explains why many of them are short and not very insightful. Hopefully, I can keep up with the games now, and have more to say about them.
Thanks for stopping by.
GOALS:
Boston- Marco Sturm (7), Chuck Kobasew (7)
Buffalo- Daniel Paille (3)
SAVES:
B oston- Tim Thomas, 45 saves on 46 shots
Buffalo- Ryan Miller, 20 saves on 22 shots
NEXT GAME: Thursday, November 15 vs. Toronto, 7:00 PM EST
This game, it can be said, may have been a case of "Be careful what you wish for". In my last post, I said that the Bruins needed to jumpstart their offense. Well, I'd say that scoring more goals in this game (8) than in the previous three combined (5) certainly qualifies as an offensive explosion.
Despite the win and the great offensive show, this was a game of ups and downs for Bruins fans. They were up 1-0 as the 1st period was winding down, then "old friend" Brad Stuart scored a power play goal with 0:13 to go in the first frame, effectively killing any momentum the Bruins had going into the break. However, they came out firing in the second. The B's scored 3 goals (2 on the power play) in a span of about 6 or 7 minutes, and they came from a variety of sources: classic goal scorer Glen Murray got the first, followed by a somewhat unlikely goal from Aaron Ward, then Kessel scored his second of the night on another power play. However, even with the 3 goal lead, Bruins fans saw something all too familiar: a late period collapse. The B's promptly gave up 2 goals, cutting the lead from a comfortable 4-1 to a very uncomfortable 4-3, again surrendering a goal in the last minute of a period.
So again, the Kings had all the momentum going into the 3rd, only to have Phil Kessel #### it back on another nice goal, cementing his first career hat trick and probably his best game as a Bruin. With the lead back at 5-3, the Bruins had me thinking that maybe this WASN'T last year's team all over again...until they again promptly surrendered two goals, the later tying the game when LA's sophomore sensation Anze Koptiar slammed home a power play goal, his second goal of the game. So, having surrendered what was at one point a 3 goal lead, it was gut-check time for the Bruins, and they responded by scoring 3 straight goals to put the game out of reach. The go-ahead goal was scored on a power play by Marc Savard around 2 minutes after Koptiar tied the game, giving Savard his 4th point of what would turn out to be a 5 point night. The next goal was another big one, and the eventual game winner, as rookie Milan Lucic scored his first career goal on a great pass from fellow rookie David Krecji. Lucic continues to impress, as he had an assist earlier in the game as well, and went toe-to-toe (and held his own) with LA's tough guy, Raitis Ivanas. The B's final goal came with about a minute and a half to go, as Chuck Kobasew, who continues to be strong offensively in the young season, scored, with assists from PJ Axelsson and Marc Savard.
All in all, this was a promising game for the B's offense. They should explosiveness that they definitely lacked last year. One thing that needs to be improved is the defense. They let up a goal in the last minute of each period (though the third one was somewhat inconsequential). Anytime a team lets up 6 goals, there are some defensive problems. Manny Fernandez was far from spectacular again. I thought he was going to be taken out after taking a shot to the collarbone/neck and going down for a few seconds, but he toughed it out and held the fort enough to get a win. He was shaken after the game, however, saying things along the lines of that he doesn't really know what's wrong, and seeming like he had very little, if any, confidence left. As most hockey fans know, confidence is something that isn't an option in a goalie, it's a necessity. Let's hope Manny can turn it around, and play like the goalie he is.
The B's need to tighten up dramatically on defense if they hope to beat the Sharks. The game is San Jose's home opener, so an already strong Sharks team will most likely be even more fired up. If the B's play the same defense as they did against LA, this game will be over by the end of the first. However, if they tighten it up and continue to play tough, they just may be able to end this West Coast swing on a high note.
GOALS:
>Boston: Phil Kessel (3 in the game, 3 on the season), Glen Murray (1), Aaron Ward (1), Marc Savard (1), Milan Lucic (1), Chuck Kobasew (3)
Los Angeles: Brad Stuart (1), Brady Murray (1), Anze Koptiar (2 in the game, 2 on the season), Mike Cammaleri (5), Patrick O'Sullivan (1)
SAVES:
B oston: Manny Fernandez, 25 saves on 31 shots
Los Angeles: Jonathan Bernier, 23 saves on 30 shots (The B's last goal was an empty netter)
NEXT GAME: Saturday, October 13, @ San Jose Sharks, 10:30 PM EST
I'm a 20 year old kid from Dorchester, MA, who one day hopes to be a sportswriter for a big time newspaper, and figure this is a good place to start. I'm in college at Suffolk in downtown Boston now, and it's awesome. I love all sports, with the Bruins and Red Sox being my favorite teams, thought I'm also a big Patriots and Celtics fan. I think it's ridiculous how no one in this town cares about the Bruins anymore. I like college sports too, no particular teams, especially any big bowl games and March Madness. I hate fairweather fans, especially everyone who jumped on the Sox bandwagon in 2004. The "pink hats" and "OMG Varitek's so hot!!" drive me crazy, just like anyone else who's a real baseball fan. Pick a team, know the players, stay loyal and be a real fan- in good times and in bad.
