Bruins beat Senators 3 -2
Boston Bruins
Forwards
17 (Lucic) - 46 (Krejci) - 18 (Horton)
63 (Marchand) - 37 (Bergeron) - 19 (Seguin)
29 (Pandolfo) - 49 (Peverley) - 38 (Caron)
20 (Pallie) - 11 (Campbell) - 22 (Thornton)
Defense
33 (Chara) - 27 (Hamilton)
44 (Seidenberg) - 21 (Ference)
43 (Bartkowski) - 55 (Boychuk)
Goalie
35 (Khudobin)
Ottawa Senators
Forwards
68 (Hoffman) - 7 (Turris) - 33 ( Silfverberg)
73 (Latendresse) - 93 (Zibanejad) - 11 (Alfredsson)
14 ( Greening) - 18 (O'Brien) - 25 (Neil)
28 (Kassian) - 15 (Smith) - 22 (Condra)
Defense
46 (Wiercioch) - 55 (Gonchar)
3 (Methot) - 62 (Gryba)
4 (Phillips) - 61 (Benoit)
Goalie
40 (Lehner)
The game tonight against the Ottawa Senators heralded the return of Boston Bruins hockey, plain and simple. Boston, despite only a handful of defensive missteps, were dominating in the Senators end of the ice. Maybe it was frustration coming to fruition after a extremely disappointing Canadian road trip. Maybe it was the signing of veteran forward Jaromir Jagr. Either way, this 3 - 2 victory over the Ottawa Senators was vintage Boston Bruins hockey and a sight for sore eyes.
I'm sure all Bruins spectators held there breath in anticipation as Colin Greening scored the games first goal only 2:48 into the first period. But from there on in the Boston Bruins turned on their game. Only a minute later David Krejci scored (though the puck seemed to come off a Senators defenseman) on the redirect from a Zdeno Chara slapshot. And only a little more than a minute after that, Brad Marchand and Tyler Seguin tallied a couple of points on a beautiful play that froze goaltender Robin Lehner.
The second period played as a classic Boston Bruins defensive battle. The Senators came out with a vengeance and put up a flurry of shots against Anton Khudobin (who had 45 saves on the night). But, so unlike the games played in March, the Boston Bruins were strong in the crease and cleared out any traffic that got in front of their goaltender. The second period also featured a strong showing by the Bruins power play with a lot of movement and speed. In contrast, the third line of Jay Pandolfo, Rich Peverely, and Jordan Caron, continued to stumble all over themselves. Their inability to capitalize on their chance make Jay Pandolfo or Jordan Caron easy targets for Jagr to replace. To the horror of every Bruins fan across the country, Patrice Bergeron went out of the game after catching a elbow to the head. His status is still unknown. We can only hold our breath and hope it is only a precaution.
Another Senators surge in the third amounted to a goal by Andre Benoit 1:55 in to the third period but Nathan Horton, he and his line playing with a vengeance tonight, netted his 11th goal of the season off a rebound created by Milan Lucic. The Bruins continued to play a strong defensive game to the buzzer and held on against the Senators.
The Boston Bruins now only trail the Northeast Division leading Montreal Canadians by only 1 point.