Bruins Nation

I was going to write about how well the Bruins played. I was going ot write about how the number two line carried the team to victory. I was going to write about how we beat the Buffalo Sabres without overtime (something no team has done yet). However, the hockey gods didn't want the Bruins to win. They pulled off a Bill Buckner. They had the game won and then choked.

Here is how the game went: The Bruins basically out skated and out shot the Sabres in the first period but no goals were scored by anyone. In the second period, about a minute and a half in, Marc Savard got the puck from Lashoff nad skated toward the goal on a 2 on 1 odd man rush with P.J. Axelsson. Savard faked a slap shot then dished the puck to P.J. who fired it home giving the Bruins a 1-0 lead.

A couple minutes later Buffalo got their first goal of the game tying the game 1-1. Then later in the period Patrice Bergeron on the powerplay shot a slaphot from the blue line towards the goal (that was surrounded by 3 Bruins players). The shot hit off the post, then bounced in front of the goal. Marc Savard, the farthest away of the three Bruins surrounding the goal seemed surprised that the puck was in front of him, never the less he shot the puck right into the goal giving the Bruins a 2-1 lead.

Then with about a minute left in the period the Sabres had a breakaway, the shot though missed the goal by a mile and P.J. Axelsson got it. He passed it to Marc Savard who shot it hard on goal. The shot was saved and Glen Murray got the rebound and scored, giving the Bruins a 3-1 lead.

Then in the 3rd period, Mowers scored a pretty lucky goal thats hard to describe. It was assisted by Hoggan and Brookbank. It all went downhill from there though.

The Bruins stopped skating and stopped playing offense. They played passive defense and got owned. In the last ten minutes of the game the Bruins gave up three goals to the Sabres and the first three periods ended all tied up 4-4.

Overtime was pretty boring except for a nice Bruins penalty kill in which Zdeno Chara was out there for the whole penalty kill. Then came the shootout. The Bruins started first and Glen Murray's shot was saved. Tim Thomas missed the Sabers first shot and the pressure was on the Bruins. P.J. Axelsson then had his shot saved and the pressure was on Thomas. Thomas made the save and Patrice Bergeron then scored, tying up the shootout with one more Sabres player to go. The Sabres managed to get their shootout shot passed Thomas and the Sabres won the game.

Since this entry is already long, I won't continue with more ranting about how the Bruins choked, I think you get the picture.

Also, I know it doesn't sound like it, but Patrice Bergeron had his worst game of the season. He and Boyes had numerous odd man rushes where Patrice bergeron had the puck, and he either didn't pass it and ended up losing a scoring opportunity, or he would pass it but way off the mark. The entire number one line (Sturm, Bergeron, Boyes) had a poor game actually, it was the number two line (Axelsson, Savard, Murray) that really played well.