Previously stagnant power play lifts Bruins to victory

Common sense dictates when one team has one more player than another, scoring should come a little easier for the team with the man advantage.

Unless, of course, that team is the Boston Bruins.

In their previous 15 games to start the season, the Bruins were a horrid 6-for-55 on the powerplay entering Saturday night’s contest against their Northeast Division foes, the Buffalo Sabres. In fact, their 10.9 percent success rate was 30th among 30 National Hockey League teams.

And that’s just for the whole season. On a more recent level, the B’s had not capitalized on 20 straight chances with an opponent in the sin bin.

So, when a roughing penalty was called against Buffalo’s Paul Gaustad 2:44 into the contest and a tripping penalty on Mike Grier was called 13 minutes later, no one could blame Bruins’ fans for being a little pessimistic about their team’s chances.’

But as they have done all season (both on the positive end as well as the negative), the Bruins again surprised all 17,565 fans in attendance with the two powerplay goals as they went on to go 2-for-3 with the advantage.

The first one came off the end of forward Mark Recchi’s stick. Defenseman Derek Morris threw the puck in the general direction of Sabres rookie goalie Jhonas Enroth, making his first career NHL start. Recchi, who was by design placed in front of the net on the right side, was able to knick the puck and deflect it past Enroth on the first shot the rookie ever faced in the NHL.

With that early powerplay goal, the proverbial monkey seemed to be square off the Bruins’ collective back, and the B’s used their freed-up shoulders to score yet another powerplay goal 13 minutes later.

This time it was the captain, defenseman Zdeno Chara, who used the man advantage as his own. With the crease packed with black and white jerseys, Chara sent one of his signature slapshots (he set the record for hardest slapshot with a 105.4 mph screamer at last year’s All-Star Game festivities) toward the net. Enroth never saw the puck as it hit a Sabre defender before tickling the twine.

Chara, who tallied his first goal of the season Saturday after scoring 19 last year, later commented on the relief of the B’s performance on the powerplay.

‘Our special teams were really sharp tonight,’ Chara said. ‘We were building on the man advantages we had. We moved the puck well. We made some good decisions and were shooting pucks very well with some traffic in front.’

Indeed, it was that added traffic in front that allowed the Bruins to finally break through in that first period.

Had Recchi not been there for Morris’ shot, it most likely would have been sent wide, and the B’s would have come up empty for the 21st time in a row.

Had the Bruins not screened Enroth, Chara may have not even taken his shot, knowing that the rookie would have had a clear eye on the puck and would have in all likelihood made the easy save.

‘That was nice to see our power play give us the lead tonight on a couple of nice goals. We had a good net-front presence I think,’ Bruins coach Claude Julien said. ‘The first went in on a good tip, and the second goal on a screen that hit their player, but that’s how you have to score goals sometimes to get yourself going.’

After the Bruins did get themselves going, their work on the offensive side of special teams translated into great success on the defensive end as well.

The Bruins penalty-kill unit went 7-for-7 in stopping the Sabres power-play attack. Unlike the power play, the Bruins have excelled recently at the penalty kill, successfully killing 26 of their opponents’ last 27 power-play opportunities.

At times even on Saturday night, the shorthanded B’s outshot the man-up Sabres by intercepting passes and turning them into odd-man rushes. Although the Bruins did not score a goal shorthanded, their performance at that aspect of the game did not go unnoticed by Julien.

‘Our special teams (as a whole) tonight were obviously much better,’ Julien said. ‘The kill was outstanding again so this was one of those cases when your special teams, both of them do well, there’s a good shot you’re going to win hockey games, and tonight we did that.’