Win a rush for Bruins

O'Donnell roams for overtime strike

[ Game summary ]

By Nancy Marrapese-Burrell, Globe Staff, 3/9/2003

hen Hal Gill and Sean O'Donnell recovered from injuries and returned to the Bruins' lineup a few games back, they took a big load off the other blue liners.

The value of the stay-at-home defensemen was on display yesterday. O'Donnell was a plus-2 and provided a bonus, scoring the winning goal at 2:15 of overtime, and Gill helped prevent Capitals star Jaromir Jagr from scoring as the Bruins beat Washington, 5-4, at the FleetCenter.

It was O'Donnell's fifth game back from a right knee sprain and Gill's sixth from a broken left ring finger, and both made strong contributions as the Bruins won their third straight game - their best run since they won three straight Jan. 23-28.

The Bruins rolled to a 3-0 lead halfway through the first period, but the Capitals stubbornly fought back to force overtime.

O'Donnell scored his first goal in more than a year, with more than a little help from his friends.

P.J. Axelsson (one goal, two assists), at the right point, hit a breaking O'Donnell with a pass but Washington goalie Sebastien Charpentier made the stop. Glen Murray got the rebound and deftly fed O'Donnell, who didn't miss on his second opportunity.

''Axy made a great play,'' said O'Donnell, whose last goal was 82 games ago (Jan. 30, 2002), when he potted the overtime winner against Montreal. ''He turned up and I probably wouldn't have jumped in that hole except I saw it was [Dainius] Zubrus, who's a forward, and that's not a natural position for them. That was really the only reason I made that move to get around him and it worked. I'm pretty sure if that had been a defenseman it probably wouldn't have worked.

''[Coach Robbie Ftorek] always preaches to us that when we have the puck we want to score goals, especially in overtime. I just kind of went to the net and I can't say enough about Glen going to the net and tracking that rebound down and finding me in the slot. I saw him take a quick look over his shoulder so I knew I just had to set and get myself in a good spot. It wasn't a very difficult goal to put in after the play Glen made.''

After the first 10 minutes, it seemed the Bruins were on their way to a blowout. But they've had trouble protecting early leads this season and yesterday was no exception.

Goals by Axelsson (No. 13) and Murray (Nos. 36 and 37, both on the power play) put Boston up by a comfortable margin by the 10:04 mark. But the Capitals began chipping away at that lead. Steve Konowalchuk potted his 14th of the year on a power play at 13:05.

Early in the second, former Boston University standout Mike Grier pulled his team within 3-2 with a shorthanded goal. Grier poked the puck away from Joe Thornton in front of the Boston net and beat Jeff Hackett with a backhander.

Mike Knuble made it a two-goal lead again with his 19th of the season at 14:16, but the next two belonged to Washington, with Robert Lang's power-play tally at 15:43 and Peter Bondra's strike at 1:33 of the third making it all even. Then O'Donnell stepped into the spotlight. He said he'd prefer it if his scoring weren't quite such an event.

''It's nice to get one in overtime but I'd rather have a couple more during the year,'' said O'Donnell. ''Well, maybe I wouldn't. I got it, so who knows? It shouldn't have come to overtime. We're not really happy with the 60-plus minutes but we're happy we got 2 points.''

Now, with 14 games left in the regular season, they move on to Chicago where they'll face the Blackhawks this afternoon on their next adventure.

''We have our confidence back,'' said Gill. ''I think we can play even better and we're trying to get better every night.''

This story ran on page E1 of the Boston Globe on 3/9/2003.
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