Bruins Nation

Undefeated!

It's been a while since Bruins Nation has seen an opening day win. It was not pretty, but a win is a win. On Thursday night in Denver, the offense dominated. The Bruins defense could not stop the Colorado attack at all. Tim Thomas, however, kept the Bruins in the game with 35 saves. Meanwhile, the Bruins focused on developing plays and taking quality shots instead of overloading Peter Budaj with shots. The Bruins scored 5 goals on 20 shots. Although it looked as if Colorado dominated the game, I really did think the entire time that the Bruins were going to win.

In the first period, Colorado came out firing, out-shooting Boston 20-5. With 13 minutes left, Phil Kessel sent the puck past Budaj and gave the Bruins the lead. Colorado quickly got it back though. While on the Power Play, someone missed an assignment and let Hejduk skate to the goal unguarded, where he recieved a pass and easily tipped in the puck. The Bruins quickly got the lead back when Kobasew battled for the puck and got it to Wheeler who scored. Colorado was able to tie the game up, but after Tim Thomas made an incredible save and killed a 5 on 3. The Ave's did tie it up though. It was a really ugly goal, though. Guys were falling everywhere and the puck just managed to go in. The period ended tied 2-2.

In the second period, the Ave's took the lead when a rebound went through Thomas's legs. The Bruins tied it up when Chara drove a wobbly puck towards the net. Savard tipped the puck in. With a little over two minutes left, Aaron Ward blasted the puck past the net and into the glass. The plexiglass shattered, so the refs decided to end the second period and attach the last two and a half minutes onto the third period.

Five minutes into the third period, the Bruins took the lead when Savard handled the puck behind the Avalanche net. Savard turned and blindly slid the puck to Ryder, who was in front of the net and able to shoot the puck in. This is a great sign! If the Bruins want success this season, the Savard-Ryder pair is going to have to come through. The Avalanche were able to tie up the game once again, however, with under 3 minutes left in the game, the Bruins pulled out a win. Lucic passed the puck to Kobasew, but it somehow got to Krejci next to the net. Krejci shot the puck in and the Bruins won.

A 5-4 win, yet no team ever had a two goal lead. Also, the Bruins did a good job of spreading out minutes. Julien seems to have confidence in all the players, which is great. Dennis Wideman led the team with just over 25 minutes, while Shawn Thornton played the least with a healthy 12 minutes.

One last note: Michael Ryder's goal was the 100th of his career.