The Bruins were shutout by Brian Elliot (31 saves) and the Ottawa Senators 2-0 on Saturday night at TD Garden. Erik Karlsson and Daniel Alfredsson were the goal scorers for Ottawa. The loss gives the Bruins a 8-5-1 record and Tim Thomas (31 saves) his first loss of the season.
The hype going into this game was who was going to step up and challenge Chris Neil. Well, we didn't have to wait long to find out as Zdeno Chara dropped the gloves with his former teammate Chris Neil 4 minutes into the game. Unfortunately, it was not much of a bout as Chara tripped over a stick and tumbled to the ice while still grabbing on the collar of Neil's jersey.
Erik Karlsson gave the Ottawa Senators a 1-0 lead just under halfway through the first period. Chris Kelly won a face-off directly back to the top of the left circle. Karlsson gathered the puck and fired a wrist shot that made its way through traffic and past Tim Thomas for the game's first goal.
The Bruins looked to have tied it up at 1-1 about 8 minutes into the second period with a power play goal, but the goal was correctly waived off after it was determined that Blake Wheeler put it in with his glove. Patrice Bergeron's shot from the right circle deflected off Ottawa goalie Brian Elliot's shoulder, hit the crossbar, and came to rest on the goal line. Wheeler fanned on his diving attempt to poke the puck in with his stick and pushed the puck into the net with his gloved hand.
Daniel Alfredsson extended the Senators' lead to 2-0 4:15 into the third period. Filip Kuba's dump-in took an odd hop off of a seam in the left wing glass and found it's way to the stick of Milan Michalek. Michalek fed a pass to Alfredsson, who was driving hard to the net and hammered a one-timer from in close into a virtually empty net. The goal was Alfredsson's team-leading 7th goal of the season.
Looking to spark his team, Mark Recchi dropped the gloves with Chris Campoli with just under 8 minutes left in the game. Recchi scored the takedown and got The Garden crowd fired up. The fight put Recchi over the 1,000 penalty minute mark for his career. He had 998 PIMs entering tonight's game. Unfortunately, the spark was not enough to lit a fire until the Bruins.
Notes:
- Fear not citizens of Boston, the "Bathroom Vandal" has been identified. You can sleep well tonight.
- Both Brian Elliot and Mat Carkner appeared in their 100th career NHL game.
- The Bruins have struggled to create offense the past two games. You can see that the B's are missing David Krejci out there.
- The Bruins blocked 13 shots. Dennis Seidenberg led the block party with 5 blocked shots.
- Tim Thomas was a hard luck loser tonight, taking his first loss of the season after stopping 31 shots. His record now sits at 8-1-0.
- The Bruins will return to action on Monday night when they host the New Jersey Devils. The game is the Bruins Annual Military Appreciation Night. Blake Wheeler and Mark Stuart have each donated $5,000 worth of tickets for military members and their families to attend the game. If you want to get involved with this cause, you can donate tickets as well.
- For more on tonight's game from our friends in Ottawa, check out Silver Seven