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.
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
With a noon start on the day after Thanksgiving, one had to expect this one to be a little slow in the early going. That's exactly what happened, but both teams began to pick up their play as the game went on, and the Bruins, overall, played a pretty good game, powered by some offense from "the Glens". In some ways, it almost seemed like they stole a win in this game, as the Islanders hit the post with the net wide open at least twice, and Glen Metropolit's goal, which proved to be the game winner, was a shot that Rick DiPietro will stop most of the time. But hey, a win is a win, and it just so happened to be the B's first over the Islanders in regulation since before the Lockout.
Overall, Tim Thomas played well again. The goal that Mike Sillinger scored on him was perfect, there isn't a goalie in the league who would have stopped it. Other than that, he was consistent, making big saves when necessary. He did, however, give up a few pretty bad rebounds that led to wide open nets for Islander forwards. Thankfully for the Bruins, the Isles failed to capitalize on these mistakes, and Thomas emerged with another victory.
Milan Lucic got rocked early on by Bryan Berard on a hit that was clean but somewhat questionable. There was nothing dirty about the intent, just that the follow through was a little high. Lucic played another shift after the hit, and actually created a pretty good scoring chance, but never returned and isn't playing tomorrow. To take his place, the B's called up Vladimir Sobotka from Providence, who will make his NHL debut tonight.
It's also a good sign to see Glen Murray continue to find the net, as he now has 6 points in his last 4 games. The B's have won 3 of those 4, and need Murray to stay hot, especially in the absence of Patrice Bergeron.
With these two teams meeting again in about an hour, it'll be interesting to see if there is any carryover from yesterday afternoon. The game got chippy at times, but players seemed to hold back due to the tightness of the game. I don't know of any outstanding animosity between the teams, but playing 2 games in two nights can probably create some pretty quick. Hopefully, the B's can get a win tonight, and go into Philly on a roll on Monday.
GOALS
Boston- Glen Murray (4), Glen Metropolit (4)
New York- Mike Sillinger (3)
SAVES
Boston- Tim Thomas, 25 saves on 26 shots
New York- Rick DiPietro, 23 saves on 25 shots
NEXT GAME: Saturday, November 24 @ NY Islanders, 7:00 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.
