The Boston Bruins scored three unanswered goals against the Buffalo Sabres Saturday night, putting away a much-needed 4-2 victory early at the TD Garden.
Two of those goals came in the first period ‘-‘- Mark Recchi scored at 3:17 and Zdeno Chara followed 13 minutes later. The third was Byron Bitz’s score just 1:22 into the second period. Then Marco Sturm put Buffalo down for good after answering the Sabres’ first goal of the night with another score late in the second period.
Jason Pominville scored for Buffalo in the final minutes of the third period, but by then it was far too late for a comeback.
Steve Begin, who assisted on the Bruins’ third goal of the night, saw a much-improved Bruins’ offense from its last few games.
‘We’ve been talking about it since day one,’ Begin said. ‘Every one was going for 60 minutes. We have to bring this game into the next one. Everything we did tonight, we need to continue.’
Boston is coming off a devastating 2-1 shootout loss to their archrivals, the Montreal Canadiens, Thursday night at the Garden. The Bruins were on a three game winless streak that started Nov. 1 with another distressing loss ‘-‘- the New York Islanders upset the Bruins in a 1-0 shootout victory.
Saturday night saw a different team ‘-‘- the Bruins scored as many goals in that game as they had in their previous five games. And it all started just three minutes into the first period.
Recchi’s early score set the tone for the Bruins’ confident night on offense. Derek Morris took a slapshot from near the blue line that Recchi deflected. The puck bounced just in front of Sabres’ goalie Jhonas Enroth and then into the back of the net.
Chara seemed especially relieved after he scored the second goal of the night, pumping both fists in the air after seeing the goal signal and the puck trickle behind Enroth.
‘I’m very happy with the score, especially after the slow start,’ Chara said.
The team captain got the puck just in front of the blue line. Seeing two players screening the Sabres’ net, he took a shot and it paid off. The puck just slipped past Enroth’s foot on the bottom left corner of the net.
Bitz scored in his first outing after having missed three games for the Bruins with a groin injury. Getting the puck near the right side of the net, Bitz deked in front of Enroth. The rookie fell for it and left his left side wide open for a quick wrister from Bitz for his second goal of the season.
Sturm effectively ended any lingering hopes for the Sabres when he answered Derek Roy’s second period goal with one of his own with less than two minutes left in the same period. From the left circle, Patrice Bergeron sent the puck to Sturm, who fired a wrister across Enroth into the left side of the net. The shot banged into the crossbar before resting in the back of the net.
‘When he plays like that, he’s a hard guy to contain,’ Bruins coach Claude Julien said of Sturm’s play Saturday night.
Tukka Rask justified his recent two-year signing with the Bruins’ ‘-‘- the rookie allowed two goals on 30 shots. He played smart, covering the puck when he needed to and not allowing himself to be thrown off by traffic in front of the net.
Julien was impressed, too.
‘It’s not easy to defend against a team that throws everything against the net,’ he said of Rask’s performance.
As good a night as the Bruins’ rookie goaltender had, the Sabres’ rookie Enroth had a disastrous outing in his first NHL start. He looked rattled after he allowed the first goal, and was fooled easily by Bitz’s score in the second period. However, it can also be said that Enroth got very little support from a Buffalo defense that seemed to take the night off.
Shawn Thornton took it upon himself to serve as Boston’s physical presence for the night. He pounded the Sabres’ Steve Montador in a first-period fight, and was thrown out in the third period after getting a misconduct call for being involved in a second fight. To his credit, he walked away as the apparent victor from both.
Thornton’s misconduct highlights the mood of the Bruins’ locker room after their loss Thursday night against the Canadiens. The team seemed frustrated with its lack of offense the last three games. Saturday night certainly seemed like an emotional release for a Bruins team irritated with its own performance.
‘I think we showed more emotion,’ Julien said after the game. ‘It wasn’t about going out there and just scrapping. When we show more emotion we’re a better team. I think it’s a little bit what I talked about last game: it’s about how we need to go out there and get out of our comfort zone.’
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