Bruins Beast the Sabres

In the second meeting between the Boston Bruins and Buffalo Sabres, the Bruins looked for redemption after a 7-4 beating in Boston. This time the teams would meet in Buffalo and it would be Anton Khudobin against Ryan Miller in net. After 60 minutes of play, the B’s would get their revenge in a 3-1 win. This win gave the Bruins an 8-1-1 record, making it their best 10-game start in team history.

Bergeron would get the game winner tonight! (Credit: Flickr/ Slidingsideways)

Shawn Thornton, Daniel Paille, and Brad Marchand would all return to the Boston lineup after being out the past few games with injuries. Lane MacDermind, Aaron Johnson, and Jamie Tardif would be the healthy scratches for the B’s.

I’ll break down the game by period!

Bruins Shoot Out Sabres

Tyler Seguin had a big last game of the season (Credit: Steph Philips)

Today marked the end of regular season hockey for the Boston Bruins as the boys took on the Buffalo Sabres for one last hurrah at the TD Garden. After a well needed few days off, Tim Thomas made his return to net to face off against Jonas Enroth.

Before the game started a few end of season awards were given out. Here’s the list and winners:
The Eddie Shore Award (given to a player for hustle and determination): Zdeno Chara
The Elizabeth Dufresne Award (given to a player for excellence in home games): Brad Marchand
The John Bucyk Award (given to a player who has contributed the most to charities and communities): Brad Marchand.
The 98.5 Sports Hub 3 Stars of the year: 3rd star- Milan Lucic 2nd star- Patrice Bergeron 1st star- Tim Thomas

And then the game got started! The Sabres got the edge on the opening few minutes getting the first three shots on net. But Thomas stuck his ground and blocked some good shots.  When the Bruins finally did get their first shot in, my did they ever. Though not a goal, it was enough to slow down Buffalo. At 7:22 Shawn Thornton and Robyn Regehr  get into literally a one punch knockout with Thorty picking up his 20th fighting major of the season, tying for the top player with the most fighting majors. In the first, the Bruins had two power play opportunities but didn’t manage to utilize them. After the first, shots on goal were even 12-12.

Second period at 16:45 Bergeron set up Tyler Seguin for his team leading 28th goal of the season. It was just a perfect opportunity for Bergy on that one. With that goal Seguin becomes the youngest player in team history to lead in B’s in points with 69 points. With 4:15 left Brad Boyes gets the rebound in front and pops it in to tie the game 1-1.

Third period started with a shorthanded breakaway from Marchand that was quickly stopped but a positive is that the energy has seemed to pick up with both teams because so far this game has been pretty lackluster. At 12:58, Boyes gets his second goal of the night. Not long after Buffalo captain Jason Pominville makes a 3-1 lead. With 10:04 to go Seguin notched his 2nd goal of the night and his 29th of the season to cut the Buffalo lead to 3-2. And not even 3 minutes later Marchy decided to steal some of Seguin’s thunder and get his 28th of the season. And friends were back to a tied game. Regulation ended and onto overtime we went!

Well overtime happened and then we went to a shootout…here’s the recap for that:
David Krecji shot- Miss
Tyler Ennis shot- Miss
Seguin shot- Miss
Boyes shot- Miss
Bergeron  shot- SCORE!
Pominville shot- Miss

BRUINS WIN! 4-3 with the shootout victory.

And that was the end of a rollarcoaster regular season for the B’s. As to the who the team will be facing first round in the playoff’s, that’s waiting on a few games but it comes down to either the Ottawa Senators or the Washington Capitals. Check back here tomorrow for the full scoop on playoff action for your Boston Bruins!!!