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CANADIENS 3, BRUINS 0 Canadiens rely on 39 stops by Theodore [ Game summary ]
No spark. Little gumption. No hands around the net. That was the game the Bruins put up against Montreal netminder Jose Theodore (39 saves), and that was the effort that snapped Boston's four-game winning streak.
''We started slow and never recovered,'' said coach Mike Keenan, his charges failing to gain ground in the scrum for playoff berths at the bottom of the Eastern Conference. ''It just shows you what preparation means.''
In the three-plus months Keenan has been in charge of the bench, the Bruins have overcome a number of deficiencies. One they haven't been able to erase has been their inability to mount a focused, determined attack against some of the league's true weaklings (a club they belonged to themselves for much of October and November).
Rather than come out storming against the down-and-out Canadiens - a franchise so low that the owners agreed to sell to an American Wednesday - the Bruins once more stumbled out of the chute. They didn't press the puck in the offensive zone. And for the brief time that Montreal attacked, the Bruins failed to rub out the competition at critical times in the defensive zone.
''I guess,'' said a somewhat somber Keenan, ''it shows a lack of respect for our competition.''
The lowly Habs showed only limited competitive drive themselves. But they had enough for aging pivot Trevor Linden to pick the top left corner with a nice wrister from the right circle at 4:13 of the first, and enough for Patrick Poulin to jam a short-range sweep past Byron Dafoe with 7:22 left in the first. The 2-0 lead in the bank, the Habs simply spent the next 40-plus minutes racing around the rink, dismantling one Boston attack after another, with one eye on the scoreboard and the other on the team bus.
''We couldn't finish our chances,'' said Bill Guerin, with but one goal in his last eight games. ''We just couldn't get that one to get us going.''
The Habs got one more, courtesy of a Poulin empty-netter with 17.6 seconds left. It came with the Bruins attacking with six forwards.
For much of the game's second half, in fact, Keenan treated his offense like it was a broken-down jalopy at the side of the road. He loaded up his power play with five forwards in the second. Late in the third period, the sides at even strength, he sent out another five-forward unit.
''On the power play, I did that just to try to get a goal, which, as everyone knows, we haven't been able to do,'' explained the coach. ''When we did it at even strength, it was a matter of us not generating much offense from our defensemen.''
If only the ingenuity behind the bench could have been matched by the execution on the ice. The five-forward PP unit, which had the likes of Jason Allison, Joe Thornton, and Guerin up front, with Sergei Samsonov and Brian Rolston at the points, managed three shots on Theodore when Keenan first tried the page torn from the Pittsburgh Man Advantage Manual (foreword by Mario Lemieux). Another version found the same players out there, only with Andrei Kovalenko subbing for Rolston at the right point.
''You have to be sharp out there,'' said Guerin. ''We've got five forwards out there, guys who can move it around pretty good, and you know the other team's going to see that and really attack if they get the puck. So you have to be focused.''
In the later stages, the plan wasn't as effective. The five forwards moved it around the box, often with crisp passes, but seemed to forget one key to scoring: shooting the puck on net. All the strategizing in the world means nothing if no one shoots. The crowd of 16,066 booed as the Bruins suffered through the offensive amnesia.
''I've been told it's unrealistic for a coach to expect it every night,'' said a slightly sarcastic Keenan, emphasizing once more his disappointment in his club's lack of intensity. ''So that makes it difficult. It's a really puzzling situation for us.''
And, no doubt, something for his players to ponder on their three-day leave.
This story ran on page E1 of the Boston Globe on 2/2/2001.
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or the most part on an express ride back to respectability the last five weeks, the Bruins last night again got somewhat sidetracked. Their power play still futile, their intensity wandering (remember, today marks the start of the All-Star break), they were rubbed out, 3-0, by the not-so-formidable Montreal Canadiens at the FleetCenter.