Even when the Boston Bruins don't play particularly well this season, they still win. The B's (19-4-4) scored three goals in a four minute and two second span in the first period and held on to beat the Tampa Bay Lightning (6-13-8), 5-3, last night at the Garden.
At 6:44 in the first, Milan Lucic began the impressive burst with a power-play goal (his 7th goal of the season) from Dennis Wideman and Phil Kessel.
Kessel made it 2-0 less than three minutes later as his attempted pass went off a Tampa Bay defenseman's stick and past goalie Mike Smith (19 saves).
Michael Ryder (7th of the season) put it out of reach at 10:46 with a nice shot, assists going to Shane Hnidy and Matt Hunwick.
Boston had a chance to make it 4-0 in the second period but P.J. Axelsson could not score on a penalty shot.
Adam Hall cut it to 3-1 Bruins at 13:06 in the second period (assists from Evgeny Artyukhin and Paul Ranger).
My fantasy team got some help from Zdeno Chara (who's had a so-so season thus far) when the big captain blasted home a power-play goal on one of his monstrous slap-shots. David Krejci and Wideman (10th assist) had the helpers.
In the third, Tampa Bay made it interesting by scoring two goals: Vincent Lecavalier (Martin St. Louis, Ranger) and Paul Szczechura (Marek Malik, Andrej Meszaros). The second goal was with just 17 seconds left and it occurred when Tampa Bay had pulled Smith for the extra skater.
The Bruins won the ensuing face-off and Axelsson (1st of the season) sealed it with an empty-netter from Patrice Bergeron.
Boston goalie Tim Thomas finished with 26 saves and improved his record to 11-3-3.
Boston is now 9-0-1 in its last 10 games and they travel to Washington D.C. to face the Alex Ovechkin, Alexander Semin and the high-flying Capitals tomorrow night.
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