All they want for Chirstmas is to find their scoring touch again. The Boston Bruins continued to struggle scoring goals Monday night against the Anaheim Ducks as the Ducks earned the 3-0 shutout victory in Boston. It’s not like Boston didn’t have a chance to score; it just so happens that all 45 of their shots-on-goal were stopped. Michael Ryder had seven of those 45 shots-on-goal. Can’t win if you can’t score. I’ve always said that.

The Bruins have struggled recently as they are 1-3-1 in their past five games. The loss brings them to 17-11-4 on the year, good for 38 points and eighth place in the Eastern Conference. The Ducks, on the other hand, improved to 18-15-4. Anaheim is currently sitting in sixth in the Western Conference with 40 points.

Tim Thomas started in goal for the Bruins and didn’t have the best game, but also didn’t have a bad game either. He stopped 22-of-25 shots-on-goal but received his fourth loss of the season, bringing his record to 15-4-3. It was his sixth time of the season in which he has let up three or more goals in a game.

For the Ducks, Jonas Hiller was very impressive as he stopped all 45 shots that he saw. Hiller has been rather up and down on the season, but his record now stands at 16-12-3. Monday’s shutout was the eighth of his career.

First Period

• It didn’t take long for the Ducks to get going as Brandon McMillan netted his second goal of the season to put Anaheim up on top. He was assisted by Luca Sbisa and Teemu Selanne on the play. Ducks up 1-0

Second Period

• Trying to get back into the game, Gregory Campbell threw down his gloves with Kyle Chipchura. Both players received five-minute fighting majors.
• With less than five minutes into the second period, Lubomir Visnovsky found the back of the net for his fifth goal of the season. He was assisted by Selanne and Saku Koivu. Ducks up 2-0
• Corey Perry sealed the victory for the Ducks as he scored his 17th goal of the year with less than five minutes to go in the period to put Anaheim up for good. He was assisted by Andy Sutton and McMillan on the short-handed goal. Ducks up 3-0

Third Period

• No scoring, no fighting.

Game Notes

• The Ducks out-hit the Bruins 22-18 and also had 10 takeaways to the Bruins 2.
• Boston won the faceoff battle 28-24, something that is very common for the B’s.
• Both teams were unsuccessful on the powerplay, 0-for-2 for the Bruins and 0-for-1 for the Ducks.
• Brad Marchand was out for the Bruins with an undisclosed injury.

Up next the Bruins will take on the Atlanta Thrashers, who are coming off a 6-3 victory over the Toronto Maple Leafs. The Thrashers are in second place in the Eastern Conference with a record of 19-11-5 (43 points). Atlanta is 6-2-2 in their past ten games.

© Greg for Sports of Boston, 2010. | Permalink | No comment
Filed under: Bruins, Featured, Top Story.

Boston has played pretty well this month, especially at home, where they are 4-0-1 at TD Garden in December. Saturday night, they helped extend the Washington Capitals’ losing streak to eight games, holding on to a 3-2 victory. The B’s had three goals in the opening period, then sat on their heels for the rest of the game, relying on Tim Thomas to make some superhuman saves to earn the win. Washington outshot the Bruins 26-2 in the third period, but with Thomas saving 25 of those 26 shots, the B’s emerged victorious.

Tonight’s opponent, the no-longer-mighty Ducks of Anaheim, find themselves on the fourth stop of their season-long seven-game road trip. They kicked things off last week by beating the Caps in overtime, but followed that up with losses in New York to the Islanders and Saturday night, down in Carolina. They are squarely in the middle of the hotly contested Pacific Division, currently in third where all five teams are separated by just six points.

Before they drop the puck on Causeway Street, let’s throw some pre-game notes your way to help you blow your friends’ minds with hockey knowledge as you’re watching the game tonight…

- With the Canadiens off this evening, a win for Boston would earn them a tie atop the Northeast Division. The B’s are just two points behind the Habs heading into tonight.

- The Ducks swept Boston in their two meetings with the B’s last season. Their first win was a 6-1 drubbing in Boston last October, followed up by a 4-3 win out on the left coast in January.

- It looks as if we’ll have a Daniel Paille sighting on the ice tonight at the Garden. Paille is usually the team’s healthy scratch, but with Brad Marchand absent from this morning’s team skate with an undisclosed injury, it appears that Paille will get the call to fill in on fourth line duty instead.

- Andrew Ference scored on Saturday, which happens about as often as a lineman returning a kick 71 yards. It had been exactly 100 games since the defenseman’s last goal… remember it? Nah, me neither.

- Flipping over to the Anaheim side of things, they will be without forward Aaron Voros, who will be sidelined 3-4 weeks with a fractured orbital bone. Veteran winger Teemu Selanne has missed nine of the team’s last 13 games dealing with a bum groin, but he did play in Saturday’s loss to Carolina and is expected to suit up for tonight’s game.

- The 40-year-old Selanne is among the scoring leaders for the Ducks, with 10 goals and 18 assists on the season. Ahead of him is winger Corey Perry (16G, 22A) and team captain, center Ryan Getzlaf (13G, 22A). Getzlaf has been hot as of late, with five goals and three assists in his last six games.

- Goaltending for Anaheim is led by Jonas Hiller (15-12-3, 2.66GAA), who has started all but six games this season. Hiller’s backup is Curtis McElhinney (2-3-1, 3.11GAA).

- Anaheim has one of the top rookies in the game, defenseman Cam Fowler. With Fowler coming to town, I thought it’d be a good chance for one of my random check-ins with the league’s top draft picks, Tyler Seguin and Edmonton’s Taylor Hall. Through just over a third of the season, it is clearly Hall who has the edge over Boston’s Seguin so far. Hall has 10 goals and nine assists in 31 games for the Oilers, while Seguin has scored just five times with six assists in 29 games. The 19-year-old Fowler, who was a teammate of Taylor Hall last season with the OHL’s Windsor Spitfires, also has Seguin’s stats beat, totaling three goals and 14 assists in 30 games with Anaheim. Fowler, who was the 12th overall pick last spring, leads all NHL rookies in ice time, at just over 22 minutes per game.

- Just a quick programming note… tonight’s game will NOT be on NESN (sorry, Jack Edwards fans). Instead, the game can be found on Versus, with a later-than-normal start time of 7:30pm.

- Lastly… did anyone watch “The Price is Right” today? Random question I know, but if you did, you saw cameo appearances from Pittsburgh’s Sidney Crosby and Washington’s Alexander Ovechkin. The pair went on to introduce an NHL-themed showcase that includes a trip to Pittsburgh for their teams’ New Year’s Day meeting in the Winter Classic at Heinz Field.

© Brian Kintz for Sports of Boston, 2010. | Permalink | No comment
Filed under: Bruins.

The Anaheim Ducks may have taken the word “mighty” out of their team’s name, but against the Bruins on Wednesday night, the Ducks surely were mightier than our hometown team.

Coming back from a 3-2 deficit heading into the final period, Anaheim put a pair of pucks past Boston goalie Tuukka Rask within the first eight minutes of the third. Then, behind some stellar goaltending down the stretch from Jonas Hiller, the Ducks held on to top the Bruins, 4-3, for their fifth straight win. Boston dropped their third straight game in regulation, a streak they haven’t had to endure since December of 2007, when they went pointless in four straight games.

The scoring opened up in the first period when Anaheim’s Dan Sexton wristed one past Rask while on the power play for his seventh goal of the year. Boston would tie it up four minutes into the second on a slapper from captain Zdeno Chara, followed by another goal from the point by defenseman Matt Hunwick a few minutes later that would the Bruins their first lead of the game.

Anaheim would come back to tie the game at two on a Matt Belesky wrister, but before the middle period came to a close, it was Marco Sturm’s 15th goal of the year that would put Boston up 3-2 heading into the final 20 minutes of play. But like so many times before, the Bruins were not able to put in a solid effort for the entire 60 minutes, as the Ducks’ Ryan Getzlaf would tie the game up, yet again, within the first two minutes of the third. Then Steve Eminger’s first goal of the year, a tip-in past Rask, would prove to be the game winner.

The Ducks may have won the game, but they did lose a key player in the process. Veteran Teemu Selanne, who had just came back from missing 17 games with a hand injury, took a puck in the face during the game, breaking his jaw (ouch!). Selanne, who was set to play for his native Finland in the upcoming Olympic games in Vancouver next month, will be out of action for at least 4-6 weeks.

For Boston, the road doesn’t get any easier. Thursday, they head north along the Pacific coast to face off with old friend Joe Thornton and the San Jose Sharks.

© Brian Kintz for Sports of Boston, 2010. | Permalink | No comment
Filed under: Bruins, Featured.

Anaheim will look to build on their four-game win streak, culminating with a very impressive 3-1 victory over the Western Conference’s top team, the Chicago Blackhawks. In that game, Anaheim put just 12 shots on goal, while Ducks goalie Jonas Hiller turned away 42 of 43 Chicago shots.

For the hometown team, the B’s have won just once in their last four games, while injuries continue to mount. On the back end, Andrew Ference remains out for Boston with a groin injury, while center Marc Savard is also sidelined long term with a slightly torn knee ligament. Both players are not with the team in California.

Defenseman Mark Stuart, and forwards Patrice Bergeron and Byron Bitz did make the trip out west, with Bitz likely returning to the lineup this evening after battling a back issue. Stuart, who has been out for more than a month with a broken sternum, could be back on the ice by the end of the trip, likely rejoining the team in Los Angeles on Saturday. Bergeron, out with a broken thumb, is skating and practicing with the team, but is unlikely to play until later this month.

Let’s dive in for more details, heading into tonight’s swim with the Ducks…

• Back on October 8th, in just the third game of the season, Boston fell to the Ducks at TD Garden in one of their worst losses of the year, 6-1.
• With Boston faltering, their hold on the fifth spot in the East is rather tenuous now. The New York Rangers, by earning one point last night in a 1-0 shootout loss to Martin Brodeur and the Devils, have tied Boston in the standings at 51 points. Hot on their heels are the surging Philadelphia Flyers, just two points back at 49, followed by three teams, Ottawa, Montreal, and the surprising New York Islanders, at 48 points.
• Head coach Claude Julien has been forced to juggle his forward lines quite a bit this season because of all the injuries. At practice yesterday, the team lined up with David Krejci centering the top line, with Blake Wheeler and Michael Ryder on his wings. Mark Recchi moved to center the second line, with Marco Sturm on his left and Miro Satan to his right. The third line features Steve Begin in the center, with recovering wingers Milan Lucic and Byron Bitz, and the fourth line will be some semblance of Daniel Paille, Shawn Thornton, Vladimir Sobotka, and Trent Whitfield. My money is on Whitfield as tonight’s healthy scratch.
• Each team has a few players enjoying hot streaks on the score sheet. Boston’s Blake Wheeler has led the way lately, putting up four goals and three assists in his last three games, while center David Krejci has a goal and four assists in his last five. For the Ducks, winger Corey Perry has a pair of goals and a pair of assists in four games, and former Canadien Saku Koivu has four goals and five assists in his last eight.
• -The score sheet for Anaheim is led by Perry, who has posted 18 goals and 27 assists thus far. Following Perry is center Ryan Getzlaf (11G, 33A) and Bobby Ryan (20G, 16A). Ryan is the NHL’s first U.S.-born player to reach 20 goals this season.
• - On the injury front for the Ducks, forwards Joffrey Lupul (leg) and George Parros (hand) are both on injured reserve and unavailable for tonight’s game. Anaheim did welcome back veteran winger Teemu Selanne to the lineup over this past weekend, after missing the previous 17 games with a hand injury. Selanne has a goal in each of the two games since his return, and has been a Bruins killer his entire career, totalling 27 points in the 21 games he has played against Boston.
• In net, the Ducks are led by Jonas Hiller (16-12-2, 2.72GAA). Hiller, who has been in goal for the Ducks for all four games on their current win streak, was named the league’s Second Star of the Week last week, after going 4-0-0 with a 1.50GAA and .954 save percentage. He has been the biggest reason why Anaheim has crept back into the playoff picture in the West. Hiller is backed up by veteran netminder Jean-Sebastien Giguere (4-7-5, 3.06GAA).
• Two current Ducks have time in Boston on their resumes. Center Petteri Nokelainen, who played for Boston in 90 games between 2007 and 2009, has four goals and four assists this season for Anaheim. Nokelainen was traded to the Ducks at last season’s trade deadline in exchange for defenseman Steve Montador. Also a familiar face on the Ducks roster is former Bruin first round pick Nick Boynton. Boynton, Boston’s first rounder in 1999, played for the Bruins from ’99 to ’06. Since then, he has jumped around from Phoenix to Florida, and now with Anaheim. In his first season as a Duck, he’s posted a goal and six assists in 37 games. Boynton will celebrate his 31st birthday on Thursday.
• With a win tonight, Bruins head coach Claude Julien will tie former coach Lynn Patrick for 8th on the team’s all-time career win list, at 117.
• Lastly, if you thought the Bruins having six future Olympians on their roster was impressive (Chara & Satan for Slovakia, Bergeron for Canada, Thomas for the U.S., Sturm for Germany, and Krejci for the Czech Republic), Anaheim boasts eight players headed to Vancouver next month to represent their native countries. Bobby Ryan is Anaheim’s lone American Olympian, while the Ducks will send a trio of players to the Canadian Olympic team, Ryan Getzlaf, Corey Perry, and veteran Scott Niedermayer. Also heading to the Olympics, a pair from Finland (Saku Koivu and Teemu Selanne) and a pair from Switzerland (Jonas Hiller and defenseman Luca Sbisa).

© Brian Kintz for Sports of Boston, 2010. | Permalink | No comment
Filed under: Bruins.

Two-and-a-half hours before the Boston Red Sox took to the field to play the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim in the first game of the American League Division Series, Boston and Anaheim, thanks to a scheduling coincidence, were also facing-off on the ice. In what can now be called a predictive match of what was to come for the Red Sox, the Bruins were thoroughly handled by the Ducks in a 6-1 loss.

Despite a strong effort in the first period in which the Bruins took a 1-0 lead after a Marco Sturm put one of the team’s 19 first-period shots past Ducks goaltender Jonas Hiller at 16:33 on a crisp pass from Marc Savard, Boston seemed to unravel after Teemu Selanne’s scored his first goal of the game (and season) during a 5-on-3 advantage 2:13 into the second period after Matt Hunwick and Sturm were sent to the penalty box (interference and hooking, respectively). Selanne scored again 83 seconds later as the Ducks remained on the power play and Anaheim never let the Bruins back in.

After the Bruins failed to capitalize on two power plays, Corey Perry added an insurance goal for the Ducks as they took a 3-1 lead with 6:58 left in the second period. Goals by Evgeny Artyukhin (say it ten times fast) and Bobby Ryan in the third made it 5-1 before Perry scooped up the puck in his defensive zone during a penalty kill, transformed himself into Apolo Anton Ohno as he broke-away from the Bruins defense, and scored when the puck bounced off of his helmet after Bruins goalie Tim Thomas failed to control the rebound on Perry’s original shot. (As the Associated Press enjoys pointing out, this was at the same moment Selanne was asking Ducks head coach Randy Carlyle why Perry was even skating on the penalty kill). If the Bruins weren’t completely deflated before Perry’s lucky goal, they certainly were for the final 53 seconds of the game.

Bruins Stud of the Game: The Bruins of the 1^st Period

While it’s difficult to say that the Bruins of the first period were really stud-like, I’m looking for the silver lining. They took 19 shots compared to Anaheim’s 11, scored on one of those shots, allowed no goals, and took no penalties.

Bruins Dud of the Game: The Bruins of the 2^nd & 3^rd Periods, Power Play Unit, Penalty Kill Unit, Anyone Taking a Face-off

It’s tough to know what happened in the locker room in between the first and second periods, but whatever it was, it needs to not happen again. The Bruins managed fewer shots in the second and third periods combined (11 + 4 = 15) than the first (19). They went 0-for-5 on the power play (to go 0-for-6 in the game) and 0-for-2 on the penalty kill. In the face-off circle, the B’s were 23-for-59, including an abomination of an effort by David Krejci, who was 3-for-13. In fairness, the Bruins did hold Anaheim to just six shots in the second period. Unfortunately for Boston, half of those went in.

That’s What He Said:

“Losing is always disappointing, but when you lose that way it’s even worse. No emotion out there. We played a terrible game.” –Steve Begin, Bruins center

JERRY!! JERRY!! Moment of the Game:

There were no fights in the match (probably because the Bruins know that if you mess with one duck, they gotta deal with the whole flock); in fact, there weren’t even any roughing minors, which is odd considering the size and grit of the two teams. However, there were many occasions during which I wanted to punch the Ducks commentators. Many thanks to ESPN360-Europe for failing to provide the NESN broadcast.

Game Notes:

• All three of the Bruins’ games have been decided by at least three goals
• The Bruins have won six of their last nine against the Ducks, including a 6-0 victory in their last meeting
• Former Bruin Petteri Nokelainen was scratched (abdominal strain)
• If you care, it was Duck Ryan Getzlaf’s 300^th NHL game
• The score differential of the Bruins-Ducks (-5) game was equal to that of the Red Sox-Angels game: 1-6=0-5

© Erikk for Sports of Boston, 2009. | Permalink | 2 comments
Filed under: Bruins, Featured, Top Story.

For the Bruins, they host a young Ducks team still hungry for their first win of the year. Similar to Boston, Anaheim put up a stinker in their home opener last Saturday, losing to San Jose 4-1. Tuesday night, they seemed to have right the ship against Minnesota, breaking out to an early 3-0 lead. That lead was short lived though, as the Ducks went down to the Wild, 4-3 in overtime.

Here now, a few more noteworthy notes before the Ducks fly into the Garden Thursday night…

• In last season’s only meeting between the two teams, Boston shut out the Ducks in convincing fashion, 6-0 at the Garden.
• Coach Randy Carlyle, entering his fifth season at the helm, has led the Ducks to the playoffs in each of the last four seasons, including their improbably Cup-winning run in 2007.
• The young leader of the Ducks is 24-year-old Ryan Getzlaf, who last year put a 25-66-91 stat line together and was tied for fourth in the league with 28 power play assists. He led a strong top line, flanked by Bobby Ryan (57 points last year as a rookie) and Corey Perry (a career-high 72 points).
• Offsetting some of the youth and inexperience around the Anaheim clubhouse, the Ducks feature a strong corps of talented veterans, led by future Hall of Fame defenseman Scott Niedermayer and long-time Duck Teemu Selanne. Add to the mix winger Joffrey Lupul, who came over in the offseason in the Chris Pronger trade with Philly, along with former Canadien centerman Saku Koivu, who signed with Anaheim via free agency.
• In goal, the Ducks feature a tandem of young and old. Jean-Sebastien Giguere (19-18-6, 3.10GAA last season) will act as a mentor to young up-and-comer Jonas Hiller (23-15-1, 2.39GAA last year), likely splitting time nearly evenly for the upcoming season.
• Anaheim features a few familiar faces to local hockey fans on their roster. Winger Petteri Nokelainen, who was shipped to Anaheim at last season’s trade deadline in exchange for Steve Montador, likely won’t be featured in tonight’s game, as he is sidelined with a groin injury. Also, ex-Bruin Nick Boynton joined the Ducks in the offseason via free agency. Boynton was the first round pick of the Bruins back in 1999, 21st overall. Lastly, ex-Penguin Ryan Whitney has joined the Ducks’ blue line crew this year. Whitney, Boston born, played his college hockey at Boston University.

© Brian Kintz for Sports of Boston, 2009. | Permalink | No comment
Filed under: Bruins, Featured.