I’m so glad that the New Jersey Devils are done coming to Boston for the season. I don’t think I have seen too many exciting, high scoring Devils/Bruins games in my lifetime. New Jersey Head Coach Jacques Lemaire needs to retire and get out of hockey; he has been playing the defensive trap style for decades, and although it works, it’s a major turnoff to any hockey fan. The Bruins lost in a shootout by a score of 2-1 on Black Friday. Bruins General Manager Peter Chiarelli held a press conference at 10:30 am announcing that Milan Lucic will be sidelined for about 4 weeks with a high ankle sprain. Chiarelli acknowledged that he figured the news would be worse than what it was as it initially appeared to be a Cam Neely knee injury all over again.
Tuukka Rask led the boys out onto the ice for pregame warmups, indicating that Tim Thomas’ hand was not game ready, even though it’s allegedly broken. I don’t understand how a goaltender can be on an active roster with a broken hand, but I also don’t know the severity of the injury. The Bruins and Devils battled through a scoreless first period that actually went at a pretty good pace. New Jersey lost one of their best two way forwards when David Clarkson took a Zdeno Chara slap shot right off the foot; Clarkson had a real difficult time getting off the ice and basically crawled his way back to the bench before being helped down the hall. During the first stoppage in play in the second period, the TD Garden honored Devils goaltender Martin Brodeur for becoming the all time minutes played leader in NHL history with 60,245 minutes between the pipes, surpassing Patrick Roy. Brodeur is honestly the best ever! I hate New Jersey and always have, but I love Martin Brodeur. He’s been the best goalie on the planet since breaking into the league in 1994. He plays over 70 games a season, he's the all time wins leader, he’s a few shutouts away from being the all time leader (he currently has 102), and he has 3 Stanley Cups to his resume. But enough about Brodeur... New Jersey broke the scoreless deadlock as Bryce Salvadore fired a shot towards the net in which Devils forward Matt Halischuck pushed the puck towards the net, and after a few whacks at the puck by top scorer Zach Parise, Parise was able to just put it over the goal line to give Jersey a 1-0 lead. I thought the game was over since Jersey had a lead. Sugar Shawn Thornton tried his best to spark the team just over a minute later as he dropped the gloves with Andrew Peters. The fight was a draw, but it definitely sparked the boys. The Bruins went into the room down 1-0 after 2 periods.
The Bruins tied the game just 12 seconds into the third period. Martin Brodeur fired the puck along the boards, and the puck took a fortunate bounce which went right to Marc Savard; he slid it over to Byron Bitz who fed Blake Wheeler for a one timer, and Big Daddy Wheels put it top shelf over Brodeur’s glove. The Bruins absolutely dominated the third period by mounting a lot of pressure by keeping the puck in the New Jersey end for a good part of the third period, but Brodeur was on his A-game and kept it tied at 1. The Bruins nearly won the game with 3.8 seconds remaining as Michael Ryder fed Marc Savard on a 2 on 1, but Savvy was robbed by Brodeur. I had my arms in the air when he shot it, but Brodeur sat me right down and the game went into overtime.
The boys battled in overtime to force a shootout. Blake Wheeler gave the Bruins a 1-0 lead in the shootout as he skated in and snapped a shot glove side past Brodeur. The Devils countered with goals from Zach Parise and Jamie Langenbrunner. It was definitely a well deserved, hard earned point, but I believe if the opponent had been any other team, the Bruins would have beaten them. I get to go back to the Garden again tonight as the Ottawa Senators come to town for a battle for first place!
The Line Combinations were as follows…
- Blake Wheeler-Marc Savard-Byron Bitz
- Marco Sturm-Patrice Bergeron-Mark Recchi
- Vladimir Sobotka-David Krejci-Michael Ryder
- Daniel Paille-Steve Begin-Shawn Thornton
- Zdeno Chara-Derek Morris
- Dennis Wideman-Andrew Ference
- Mark Stuart-Matt Hunwick
Scoring Summary…
- NJD: Zach Parise assisted by Matt Halischuck and Bryce Salvadore
- BOS: Blake Wheeler assisted by Byron Bitz and Marc Savard
Bruins Goal Video…
- Wheeler: Chevy Chase dancing in European Vacation
Warmup Music…
- Jay-Z feat Lil Wayne - "One Republic"
- Chammillionaire - "Ridin' Dirty"
- Eminem - "Lose Yourself"
- Rihanna feat. Jay-Z and Kanye West - "Run This Town"
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