Bruins Nation

On Thursday night, the Boston Bruins marched into Ottawa and embarrassed the Senators in front of a sold out crowd. The recently struggling Senators were without Dany Heatley and Daniel Alfredsson, and the Bruins let them know how important those two really are. The Bruins, in their fourth attempt of the season, finally defeated the best team in the Eastern Conference.

One word described the first period. Dominance. The Bruins dominated the first period. It seemed as if every second the Bruins were in control of the puck. The Bruins came out early and took a big lead, and everyone knows it's easier to play when your team is winning.

28 seconds into the game, Marc Savard won an offensive zone face-off and sent the puck to Kessel. Kessel's wrist shot put the puck in the back of the net. Three minutes later, a nice play on transition allowed Chuck Kobasew to shoot on it. His shot was stopped by Martin Gerber, but Lucic was there to put in the rebound; the Bruins were up 2-0. Five minutes after the that, sloppy play by Ottawa led to a shot by Savard going in high blocker side. Less then ten minutes into the game the Bruins were up 3-0.

Throughout the rest of the game, Ottawa did show some life. Mike Fisher played very well, and it was clear that Ottawa would not give up. Tim Thomas and the Bruins defense, however, made Ottawa's efforts futile. Tim Thomas finished the game with 30 saves.

The Senators did eventually give their 19,959 fans something to cheer about. In the middle of the third period, Ottawa crashed the net on the power play and Antoine Vermette managed to score. Chuck Kobasew scored an empty net goal and the Bruins won the game 4-1.

Game 51's lines were a bit different than usual, but the team still got the job done. PJ Axelsson's return broke up the kid line and jumbled all the other lines. PJ played very well for someone who had been out for as long as he was. He is a great defensive winger and is an asset to this team. I'm sure all 30 NHL teams want Axelsson ont their penalty kill unit. After the game, Pascal Pelletier was assigned to Providence. Pelletier showed a lot of promise and is surely going to be back soon.