Bruins Nation

So check this out. I am at a hotel with family, visiting for a couple days. When I heard the hotel room had cable I was glad I would be able to watch the Bruins game. Now somehow my hotel room has NESN but it doesn't have Versus, so I was out of luck. I had my laptop though. Then I remembered that Comcast streams NHL games online for free. So I went to www.comcast.net but they were only streaming the Pittsburgh vs New Jersey game, not the Bruins game. So what I ended up doing is going to WBZ's website and I listened to the radio broadcast of the game through my laptop (because I am that big of a Bruins fan!) So today's recap of game 34 is just from the notes I wrote down while listening to the game, and the highlights that were on NESN.

To start I would like to say it was a very exciting game to listen to on the radio, and the WBZ guys did a fantastic job. This is the first time I had ever listened to a Bruins game on the radio and, even though it isn't television, the guys doing the broadcast did a great job and I felt like I knew what was going on the entire time.

In the first period Brad Boyes started the scoring at 6:39 when he redirected a drive from Andrew Alberts into the net. Columbus then tied up the game when the puck got away from Brad Stuart. The WBZ announcer commented on how the Blue Jackets player's shot was very nice. A minute later, the Bruins were on the power play when Chara's pass was intercepted. That ended up being a 2 on 1 odd man rush for the Blue Jackets that ended in a Columbus short-handed goal, giving them a 2-1 lead. Two minutes later, the Bruins tied the game at two when Mowers passed deep to Donovan. Donovan's shot was then blocked. Wayne Primeau then put the puck in net with a nice wrist shot.

In the second period, Both the Blue Jackets and the Bruins had a man in the penalty box when Brad Stuart drove the puck to the net. His shot didn't go in but Stan Chistov had his stick down and was able to tip the puck into the net. Then a few minutes later, the Bruins were on a 5 on 3 power play when Glen Murray passed the puck to Patrice Bergeron who had skated in front of the net. Bergeron then scored, giving the Bruins a 4-2 lead. Then after the Bruins squandered (that's the exact word I wrote in my game notes) a few golden scoring opportunities, a Blue Jacket's back hand shot beat Thomas, cutting the bruins lead to 1, 4-3, to end the second period.

In the third period the Bruins played all defense! I wrote four different times in my game notes that Thomas was coming up with huge saves. Marco Sturm had, what sounded like on the radio, a huge scoring opportunity at 14:39 in the third period, but apparently he was robbed by the goalie. With a minute and a half left, Brad Stuart was sent to the box for tripping. That wasn't bad because now the Bruins can ice for the rest of the game. But then, Zdeno Chara was called for hooking with a minute left and, with the goalie pulled, Columbus had a 6 on 3 advantage. Primeau, Alberts, and Bergeron were on the ice. Columbus then scored with 22.9 seconds left. After seeing the goal on NESN after the game, I now know that that Federov had a wide open shot with a wide open goal. Thomas was diving across but it was too late and the game was heading to overtime.

In the overtime, the Bruins successfully killed the rest of Chara's penalty when the Bruins made the worst line change of the season. All four men went to the bench leaving no Bruins players on the ice. The Blue Jackets then had an uncontested breakaway that led to the winning goal. Thomas couldn't do anything about it, but after watching the goal on replay, he looked really mad about the goal. I don't know if he was mad at himself or mad at the bench for putting him in that position, but he was mad.

So the Bruins lost 5-4 in overtime. Thomas had 37 saves and the Bruins played pretty well. They gave up a short-handed goal, a 6 on 3 power play goal, and a goal during a 4-man line change. If you take away those dumb goals, then the Bruins would have won easily. At least we got a point out of this loss. This is the first overtime loss of the season, so if you want to be picky about the record that I put at the title, the Bruins are technically 18-13-1-2.

One last note: Anson Carter, a former Bruin, is now with the Columbus Blue Jackets. He was unavailable for last night's game which is too bad. I would've like to have seen (or heard on the radio) about how he is doing.