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Thursday, January 12, 2012

Bruins Pick Up Their Third Straight Win Against The Canadiens, 2-1 At TD Garden


How much of a mess are the Montreal Canadiens this season? Well they pulled a bush league move that I've never even heard of by trading forward Michael Cammalleri to the Calgary Flames for forward Rene Bourque, between periods of a game.

The best part is that Cammalleri likely got shipped out of town because he ripped the Canadiens organization the other day for their "losing mentality". Just great stuff.

This all happened tonight as the Habs (16-20-7) fell 2-1 to the Bruins (28-11-1) in a meeting that was a complete snoozer as far as this storied rivalry goes.

Boston recorded its third straight win against Montreal-after starting the season with two consecutive losses-thanks to a fluky goal from Jordan Caron, a nice backhander from Milan Lucic and 33 saves by Tim Thomas (18-7-0).

The fact that Vancouver was here last weekend and also that the Canadiens sit 18 points behind the Bruins in the Northeast Division took some juice away from this matchup.

Of course, P.K. Subban had to do something cowardly while he was at the Garden so he chose to give David Krejci a forearm shiver to his head. Andrew Ference jumped all over Subban but all the Canadiens defenseman could do was lay on the ice with his hands covering his head. Really.

Caron was a surprise addition to the lineup after getting called up from Providence yesterday. He took Zach Hamill's spot. 1:23 into the proceedings, Johnny Boychuk's dump in took a crazy bounce off the back boards leaving Montreal goaltender Carey Price (28 saves) totally out of position (somewhere Roberto Luongo lectures the media). Caron (2nd of the season) got an easy tap-in with Zdeno Chara picking up the second assist.

After a scoreless second period, Lucic (15th of the season) scored the game-winner at 3:43 of the third on a backhander. Nathan Horton set him up from behind the net and Krejci (points in 10 straight games) had the other assist.

Ference was tagged with two penalties so the Canadiens took advantage as Yannick Weber (4th of the season) ended Thomas's shutout bid at 12:46 with a screened blast from the point.

This concluded a four-game homestand for the Bruins, all against Canadian teams. They went 3-1 and now they head out to face the Carolina Hurricanes on Saturday night. Hopefully nothing too crazy happens because I'll be watching only be watching bits and pieces of it between commercials during the Patriots-Broncos game.

Boston has one final game in Montreal, on February 15, but after that they can bid adieu to an opponent that is going nowhere fast this season. I'd be shocked if the Canadiens made the playoffs. At least they have a bunch of other professional teams and sports to focus on up there, oh wait.





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