Bruins Nation

Three wins in a row and no longer in last place. I, along with all of Bruins nation, am having a good week.

The major keys to last night's victory are lack of penalties and division of minutes. The Bruins had two penalties in last night's game. Just two, that's incredible. Also only three players (Chara, Alberts, and Mara) played more than 20 minutes last night. (Chara of course had the most for the 16th straight game) The lack of penalty minutes allowed the Bruins to have a solid defense and solid offense throughout the game, and the division of minutes played between all the players in the lineup allowed the Bruins to have fresh legs on the ice all the time. Having players not playing too many minutes was especially key to last night's game because of the Bruins game in Washington. A game that went past overtime and was won in a shootout by the Bruins.

In the first period, the Bruins scored the first goal of the game giving them a 1-0 lead. On the Powerplay, the Bruins won a faceoff in the Toronto zone and the puck was sent back to Paul Mara who shot the puck towards the goal, it was saved. Brad Boyes got the rebound and tried to slip the puck into the net. That was saved but that rebound went to Phil Kessel, who was crashing towards the net. Phil Kessel got the puck and snapped a nice wrist shot right past the Toronto goalie.

No goals were scored in the second period. In the third period Toronto tied up the game on the powerplay. Just like the Bruins goal, Toronto won the faceoff in the Bruins zone and then shot the puck. This time though, the puck zipped by Tim Thomas, who was clearly not ready for the shot, (he was basically standing up, and fell over backwards once the shot went by him.) The very end of the period was intense but the third period ended tied 1-1.

34 seconds into the overtime, Marco Sturm shot the puck and Patrice Bergeron got the rebound. Bergeron then shoots the puck into the back of the net and the Bruins won 2-1.

In the beginning of the season, Phil Kessel and Patrice Bergeron struggled and I really criticized them both. (They did deserve the criticism.) Phil Kessel and Patrice Bergeron really came through last night. Not only last night, but Patrice Bergeron has scored the winning goal in all three of the last Bruins games.