Bruins' grade again incomplete

[ Game summary ]

By Kevin Paul Dupont, Globe Staff, 1/11/2003

UFFALO - More lapses, another loss, and what once looked like a Cinderella season for the Bruins has turned into a nightly Shrek show.

Working with a 2-0 lead early in the third period, the Bruins, almost on cue, botched plays and chopped up the puck, ultimately to suffer a 4-2 loss at the hands of the Buffalo Sabres.

A crowd of 14,169 inside HSBC Arena watched Ales Kotalik strike twice, once for the winner, in a third period in which the embattled Sabres outshot the Bruins, 13-8, en route to only their 11th win this season.

''It's a bad loss for us,'' said Bruins coach Robbie Ftorek, his club losing for a fifth straight time and falling to a morose 2-11-1 over the last 14 games. ''A very bad loss for us.''

Five straight losses equals the club's high for this season. Perhaps even more troubling: the last five-game skid only came in mid-December. It's about as bad as it ever gets in Bruins Nation.

''We played hard, and we were in position, up a couple of goals in the third period,'' said a near-exasperated Ftorek, who saw Jozef Stumpel bump the lead to two goals with only 31 seconds gone in the third. ''We have to defend a lead, and we have to come from behind ... we didn't get it done.''

What has become almost a nightly meltdown by the Black 'n' Gold came in the third period, soon after Stumpel, working on a newly revised No. 1 line with Andy Hilbert and Glen Murray, boosted the Boston lead to 2-0. Collecting a rebound right in front, Stumpel connected for his ninth goal this season - second in 16 games - on a sleight-of-hand wrister high into the net.

But a little more than a minute later, at 1:45, Tim Connolly cut the Boston lead in half with a nifty play in front, collecting an Adam Mair pass on his forehand, switching to his backhand, and roofing a doorstep shot over Bruins netminder Steve Shields. Then, with 8:07 gone, Boston's 29 minutes 17 seconds of lead time vanished when Kotalik finished a two-on-one break with a forehand sweep of J.P. Dumont's feed from the right side. Dumont and Kotalik barreled by Boston backliner Hal Gill, leaving him flatfooted up ice, and Dumont only had to shuttle in a one-handed pass from the bottom of the right faceoff circle for the juicy setup that Kotalik drove home.

In a span of 6:22, the Boston lead had vanished.

''I don't know what it is,'' said Boston defenseman Nick Boynton. ''It's like something gets into our heads, or something.'

Kotalik scored the winner with 1:13 remaining in regulation, after Stu Barnes muscled the puck off Bryan Berard in the corner to Shields's right, utlimately leading to a Dumont feed to the front for Kotalik to can. The night's Keystone Kops moment came in the closing seconds when both Stumpel and Jonathan Girard flailed away and missed an icing touch-up, leaving Miroslav Satan at the doorstep to can the easy fourth goal.

''A 2-0 lead in the third period, it has to be over,'' said a disgruntled Murray. ''We stopped taking it to 'em. It's got to stop happening.''

To no one's surprise, given the ineptitude of the two sides (a combined 5-18-2-1 over the last five weeks), the first 40 minutes could not be classified as a barnburner. The Sabres played themselves out of playoff contention less than a month into the season. The Bruins have been doing their best to do the same since early December.

After going more than the first 10 minutes without a shot in the first, the Bruins finally began to generate a little pop later in the period, leading to the period's only goal. Brian Rolston, gathering up a loose puck after it kicked left out of the slot, beat rookie netminder Ryan Miller with a bad-angle 12-foot wrister that the Bruins pivot fired from just about along the goal line. Only 1:11 prior to the first intermission, the Bruins had the 1-0 lead.

If the first period was short of highlights, the scoreless second had even fewer. P.J. Stock spiced it up a little, but not in his usual way. Rather than putting up his fists, the pint-sized pugilist puckered up his lips with 9:52 to go in the period and placed a smacker on the helmeted head of Murray.

The Jumbotron at the time was entertaining the sparse crowd with a ''Kiss Cam'' break, the HSBC camera scanning the crowd. Eventually, the lens focused on Stock and benchmate Murray, sitting to his left. Before the blushing Murray could refuse his suitor's advances, Stock nailed him on the side of the helmet with a two-lipped smack attack.

But by the end of the night, Stock and the rest of the Bruins had kissed another 2 points goodbye.

This story ran on page E1 of the Boston Globe on 1/11/2003.
© Copyright 2002 Globe Newspaper Company.