By Jake Seiner/DFP Staff
After Blake Wheeler and Miroslav Satan scored to give the Boston Bruins a first-period lead, the Chicago Blackhawks ran off five straight goals and chased B’s netminder Tim Thomas in a 5-2 win Thursday night.
“I thought against a team like this, probably the best team in the league right now, you have to manage the puck very well, and we didn’t do that well enough tonight,” Bruins coach Claude Julien said.
Many of the Bruins players were less kind in their personal assessment.
“It’s a broken record, you know?” Wheeler said, referring to what he deemed a lackluster Bruins effort. “It’s getting to the point of just –– talk is getting so cheap right now. Rah rah speeches, hitting the boards on the bench –– that only goes so far. You just gotta do it.
“We gotta quit treating this like it’s a privilege, like it’s a right of ours to come play in front of 18,000 people every night and start playing like it’s the most important thing to us.”
B’s centerman Marc Savard left the game with a knee injury less than a minute into the game and did not return. Savard will take an MRI exam Friday, and that will determine his diagnosis going forward, according to Julien.
“You lose Savy early, you’re down to three centermens off the bad,” Julien said. “It made it a bit of a struggle and you have to juggle your lines a little bit and that doesn’t help either.”
The offensive outburst marked the eighth straight game the Blackhawks have scored at least four goals. Chicago was led by 2 goals and 1 assists from defenseman Duncan Keith, and also received goals from Tomas Kopecky, Andrew Ladd and Patrick Kane.
Perhaps the lone bright spot for the Bruins was the two-point effort put forth by Wheeler. The forward got his night going early on the power play, which threatened Chicago netminder Antti Niemi with scoring chances often after Jonathan Toews went off for slashing 3:47 in. Finally, defenseman Dennis Wideman whipped a shot in front from the right point, which Wheeler tipped around Niemi and inside the left post to give the Bruins a 1-0 lead.
Just over two minutes later, Wheeler set up Satan for Satan’s first goal as a Boston Bruin. Wheeler chased down Troy Brouwer behind the Chicago cage and pulled the puck away in the right corner. Wheeler slid the pass to a waiting Satan inside the left circle, who paused to freeze Niemi then ripped a shot top-shelf glove side to put the B’s up 2-0.
The points give Wheeler seven in his last three games, and 27 (12 goals, 15 assists) on the season.
Boston could not make the lead last, however, as Keith and Kopecky tallied back-to-back goals to close out the first period.
The ‘Hawks took the lead just 1:42 into the second, capitalizing on a roughing minor called on Zdeno Chara near the end of the first. With Andrew Ladd camped in front of Thomas, Brent Seabrook throw a shot on net from the right point. The shot hit Ladd and bounced to the top of the crease. Ladd poked a stick through Johnny Boychuck’s legs and tapped the puck on goal, and Tim Thomas couldn’t find it before it slid into the cage.
Keith picked up the second assist on Ladd’s goal, and then tallied another goal for himself at the mid-point of the second. Keith, working from the blue line at the left point, fired a shot on net that Thomas was unable to stop.
The goal was Keith’s second of the game, and his three points leave him with 40 on the season (8 goals, 32 assists).
“Zdeno just happened to be cutting across the same exact time the guy let go of the shot,” Thomas said. “I never found the puck. I heard it hit the post and that was it . . . It was the perfect screen.”
Julien pulled the recently elected USA netminder after Keith’s second goal, replacing him with Tuukka Rask. The move was met by a notable applause by the Garden faithful.
“Obviously, it wasn’t aimed at Timmy,” Julien said of the decision. “It was probably to stop the hemorrhaging – you can put it that way. And in a way, it did. It stopped the goal scoring anyway.”
Rask stopped 11 of the 12 shots he faced, allowing a goal to Kane at 17:49 of the third.
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