Bruins Nation

16,468 fans, including myself, went to the garden last night and saw a fantastic game. Phil Kessel got another shootout-winning goal, Toivonen got his first win in ages, and the Bruins looked good against Pittsburgh.

The first period was pretty boring. Pitt scored two goals. One of them was on a shot that was so fast the goal light didn't go off, and the other was just a shot that Toivonen didn't even go for. The puck just flew by Hannu's shoulder.

One minute into the second, Glen Murray scored when he was wide open in the Penguins zone when he got the puck, deked and scored! Towards the middle of the period on a Bruins power play, Sturm shoved a rebound through the pad of Fleury to tie up the game. Then what seemed like seconds later, Brad Stuart's drive went in the net, giving the Bruins a 3-2 lead. The second period goals for the Bruins stopped there. Pittsburgh managed to score two power play goals later in the second. One of them Toivonen was just two seconds late in lifting his glove. Hannu's reaction time wasn't that sharp last night.

In the third period, with the Bruins down one, we started playing more intense hockey and it paid off. In the middle of the period, Marc Savard put a rebound in net, tying the game.

Overtime was fun, the Bruins had a lot of chances but Fleury had some nice saves. So th egame went into a shootout.

Erik Christensen and Marco Sturm traded off goals on the Penguins and Bruins first shots respectively. Then Toivonen stopped Evgeni Malkin and Sidney Crosby while Fleury stopped Bergeron and Savard. Then Toivonen stopped Sergei Gonchar (yes, that Sergei Gonchar). Phil Kessel was up next, the rookie could win the shootout with a goal. He skated down the ice and scored, winning the game for the Boston Bruins.

The game was a ton of fun!

One last note: Andrew Alberts and Milan Jurcina did not play at all in the third period. Coach Lewis benched them both because he didn't think they were playing well. That led to call-up Bobby Allen playing some hard time for the Bruins. That hard time got him some well deserved praise. Also, Brad Stuart actually had more playing time than Zdeno Chara, go figure.