Bruins Nation

What a great game! Yesterday's game Bruins Nation saw fantastic hockey. Even if the Bruins lost I would've been happy. The Bruins played hard, and beat the best team in the east.

After the Bruins had gone 1-5-1 in their last seven games, coach Dave Lewis decided to switch up the lines:

Old lines		New lines
Axelsson - Savard - Murray		Axelsson - Savard - Murray
Sturm - Bergeron - Boyes		Sturm - Bergeron - Donovan
Mowers - Primeau - Donovan		Mowers - Primeau - Chistov
Tenkrat - Kessel - Chistov		Tenkrat - Boyes - Kessel*

*Kessel was moved to right wing from center.

In yesterday's matinee, the Bruins started out firing, and continued playing fast-paced hard hockey the enitre game. Three and a half minutes in, on the power play, Zdeno Chara's drive was saved, Marc Savard then put the rebound in net and the Bruins had an early 1-0 lead.

That lead didn't last very long. Two minutes later Buffalo scored when Thomas saved a bunch of Buffalo shots before Derek Roy managed to get a rebound past him. Then a few minutes later, Thomas saved a Buffalo shot but the rebound went to far to his left. Hecht then stuffed the puck into the goal. Even though Buffalo scored twice in a few minutes, the Bruins weren't really playing poorly. We were generating great scoring opportunities, and our defense wasn't bad either.

Later in the first period, with .9 seconds left, Stuarts drive was saved. The rebound hit off Axelsson's stick then off a Sabre's player's skate and into the net. With .9 seconds left! It was great, the Bruins tied up the game at 2. In the first period the Bruins outshot Buffalo 19 to 8.

Even though there were no goals, the second and third periods were a lot of fun to watch. The Bruins and Sabres were both robbed by the other's goaltender plenty, including a huge save by all-star Ryan Miller on a Bruins 3 on 1, and a diving pad save across the goal by Thomas. Also in the second period, Andrew Peters and Andrew Alberts got into a fight. Alberts, a newcomer to the sport of boxing, got beat pretty bad. It was nice to see him stand up for the team but he still took a lot of punches from Peters. Alberts did manage to get in a couple punches at the end though.

Overtime was fun, not much really happened though. So the Sabres and Bruins went to the shootout for the second straight time.

In the shootout the Bruins elected to let Buffalo shoot first
S: Thomas saves shot from Briere.
B: Sturm shoots over blocker side shoulder, scores
S: Thomas stops Kotalik.
B: Glen Murray tried a shot from far away, had it easily saved.
S: Thomas saved Vanek's shot...
...and the Bruins beat the Buffalo Sabres!

One Last Note: With yesterday's win, the Bruins went from 13th place to 9th place in the conference.