Bruins Nation

Everyone came up big last night in the Bruins win over the Leafs. Tim Thomas had 34 saves, the defense did a great job rebounding the Maple Leafs shots, The Bruins offense came out firing, and the Metropolit line (Bochenski-metropolit-Schaefer) scored three goals. Peter Chiarelli described the team well on the pre-game show. He said that the Bruins defense has done a great job bending but not breaking. They have given up a lot of shots, but very few quality shots. Chiarelli also said he was proud of how the team is playing 60 minutes. Besides for the first game of the season, and the one horrible loss to Montreal, the Bruins have stayed in every game score-wise.

The Bruins started off the game on a roll. The Savard Line started shooting the puck like crazy. 19 seconds into the game it paid off when Savard's one-timer from Murray got by Raycroft. Two minutes later, Milan Lucic made sure the Bruins kept the momentum by beating up Mark Bell. While killing a penalty ten minutes in, however, the Bruins got very unlucky. A leaf's shot deflected to the side of the net, and then bounced over the net, hit off the net, and landed right in front of the goal. It was an easy backhand for Kyle Wellwood. This didn't phase the bruins though. 30 seconds later, Denis Wideman's drive bounced off Raycroft resulting in a somewhat long rebound. Luckily the puck went straight to Marco Sturm, who snapped it into the net, giving the Bruins a 2-1 lead.

In the middle of the second period, Peter Schaefer and Glen Metropolit won a great battle in the Leafs zone. Metro then had the puck behind the net. He skated around to the front of the net and scored. The Bruins, not used to a 3-1 lead, got lazy. Mats Sundin found Ponikarovski next to the net, who then squeezed the puck by Thomas to cut the lead. TT didn't locate it in time and the Bruins Defense should have been more aggressive. So period two ended 3-2 Bruins.

Period three was all Bruins. Two minutes in, Peter Schaefer took Glen Metropolit's pass all the way to the net and scored. Then another two minutes later, Schaefer scored on Bochenski's rebound, who was also setting a screen. The Bruins took the 5-2 lead right up 'till the end.

The Bruins are now 9-6-2, one game ahead of where they were after 17 games last season (they were 8-7-2). Next game is Saturday night in Montreal. It's always a big game when Boston's best hockey players take on those from Montreal!