After 40 minutes of hockey at the TD Garden on Thursday night, Kessel Mania II was starting to look like a carbon copy of it's predecessor. With goals from Mark Stuart, Derek Morris and a beauty of a breakaway by David Krejci, the Bruins found themselves with a familiar 3-0 lead over the visiting Toronto Maple Leafs.
Just 4:09 into the final frame, however, the Bruins were forced to abandon cruise control and Claude Julien elected to pull the car over and have a chat with his squad. After goals by Mikhail Grabovski and Nikolai Kulemin brought Toronto back to within a goal, the Bruins' bench boss called a critical timeout to settle the troops down.
"Claude called the time out there and he just talked, you know, it was good. He just talked and said we got to get our focus back and our composure back." veteran winger Mark Recchi said. "I mean, no one panicked on the bench, and we really regained our composure after that and that’s a good sign. Tuukka made the saves when he had to after that and we definitely got a lot better."
Rask held the fort down, and never in more spectacular fashion than his save on Matt Stajan midway through the third period. With the Leafs' forward glaring at an open net to Rask's right, the rookie netminder desperately dove and managed to catch a piece of the puck a good two feet off the ice.
"Yeah I think it hit my blocker and the post, the side of the post and you know it’s just you can’t be in the position to make the palm save you just have to be throwing your body and your arms all over the place." Rask, who went on to stop 32 of 34 Toronto shots, said.
"I had a tough angle. I think I hit the post. I know I hit the post." Stajan said afterward. "I don’t think he (Bruins goalie,Tuukka Rask) even got a piece of it. Hindsight now you can look back on it maybe I could have had an extra second to pull it through but it was a tough angle. I tried my best to get it under the bar but it hit the post."
With 4:01 to go in the game, and the Leafs still pressing, Jason Blake was whistled for high-sticking for the second time in the contest. The penalty proved to be fatal.
Recchi out-battled sophomore blueliner Luke Schenn in front of Toskala's net, and was able to bury a cross-ice feed from Blake Wheeler on the ensuing PP.
"Yeah he made the stick save and Wheels made a great pass over and he actually made a pad save to top it off." Recchi said. "Then I was fortunate to bounce it right back on my stick but I stuck around the net and I got rewarded for staying around there and Wheels made a heck of play to me."
With 12 ticks remaining, and Toskala's cage vacated, Patrice Bergeron made an extremely unselfish play dishing the puck to an open Recchi, who buried his second goal in less than four minutes of play.
"I mean, Bergy could have put it in himself, just as unselfish as he is. I mean he could have put it in himself, but he gave it over to me, and it was pretty wide open there so I was fortunate to put it in. I missed one earlier in the year and, you know, it’s nice to get that and really close them out."
For Recchi, who now has 8 points (4g, 4a) in his last eight games, it appears both he and the team are gaining confidence as the wins begin to pile up.
"Yeah I mean we’re starting to play more like we did last year as a team and you know, we’re starting to get our swagger. And you know we’re still not there, but we’re getting there. And we got a lot of work to do but we’re slowly making our way there."
If Recchi is right and the Bruins, who have gone 10-2-4 over the last 16 games, aren't quite where they want to be just yet, the rest of the Eastern Conference might be in a heap of trouble.
JC
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