Bruins stopped at start

Their lengthy journey begins on down note

[ Game summary ]

By Kevin Paul Dupont, Globe Staff, 2/12/2003

ONTREAL - The road started here, the place of so many dead ends in Bruins history, and the ending was like so many of the past - the road to perdition.

The Bruins did many things right. They kept their legs moving, the shots coming (Glen Murray with 10) and, most important, the 60-minute effort was nearly a 100 percent upgrade in effort over Saturday's nationally-televised horror snorer with Pittsburgh.

Now the punch line: Canadiens 3, Bruins 1.

The place improvement counts most, the Bruins came up the shortest.

''A lot of quality chances, but we didn't put `em in,'' said Murray, whose shots per period (4-2-4) read like a cellphone area code. ''That's a tough loss for us.''

Tough, because after going 2-2-0-1 over their previous five games, the Bruins were in significant need of: (a) making up for their poor showing against the Penguins and (b) getting their two-week Black-'n-Gold revival show off on the right skate. In the end, they did neither, and had only Don Sweeney's first goal of the season (No. 50 of a distinguished career) to show for their trip to La Belle Provence.

''Can't complain about the effort,'' said coach Robbie Ftorek, his squad in desperate need of avoiding falling into the kind of five-week dead zone of December-January that saw the club freefall from first to sixth in the Eastern Conference. ''We didn't put as many behind their goalie as we would have liked - and he made some good saves - but we played well. Too bad we didn't get any points out of it, but I like the way we played.''

Mathieu Garon got the call in the Montreal net, the second straight start for the yet-to-be-NHL-tested young netminder. By the end of the night, he had pocketed first star in the Bell Centre, turning away 42 shots. At the other end, ex-Habs goalie Jeff Hackett was a less-impressive 29 for 32 in the save department. He turned in a number of good saves, but was not as sharp as the quick-and-agile Garon, who soon will be taking on cult-hero status if he keeps subbing for No. 1 Jose Theodore.

Hackett let up two goals on 12 shots in the middle period, all the margin the Habs would need. Mike Ribeiro connected for the first with 6:27 gone, deflecting in an Andrei Markov shot that came in from above the left circle. Next, with only 1:41 to go in the second, ex-Bruin Joe Juneau (Where did the Bonanza Line go?) swept a blind backhand relay into the slot for Nicklas Sundstrom to pop by a late-to-shift Hackett. No one in this town was too pleased when general manager Andre Savard shipped Hackett to San Jose for Sundstrom - and fans were less pleased when Hackett was then flipped to Boston for Kyle McLaren - but no one in the crowd of 21,273 seemed to mind when Sundstrom popped in his sixth this year.

Sweeney, in and out of the lineup the last two weeks, popped in his goal with help from Jozef Stumpel and P.J. Stock with only 2:25 gone in the third. The Bruins had a dozen more shots over the remaining 17:35, but Garon pocketed all of them. Jan Bulis made it game, set, and match with his blistering shot past Hackett with 90 seconds of hope still on the clock.

''I thought it was a good effort - we came out and worked hard,'' said Bruins center Brian Rolston. ''Hack played great. We had some tremendous opportunities that we couldn't get by them. A couple of areas we could get better, but I thought we took play to them most of the night.''

Area No. 1 for improvement: the power play. The Bruins were 0 for 4 with the extra man and, oddly, looked their worst on offense when they had the advantage. Area No. 2: defensive zone coverage. With Sean O'Donnell ailing, it's a work that needs to make progress, and that's never easy, especially with playoff spots being tied down now.

All in all, a vastly better, more cohesive showing for the team that is still trying to prove it hasn't lost its way. The improvement was encouraging. But the loss wasn't. Six more stops to go, and a playoff deadline (March 11) looming. The road up ahead, in the end, could prove to be the crossroad of their season.

This story ran on page F1 of the Boston Globe on 2/12/2003.
© Copyright 2003 Globe Newspaper Company.