(AP Photo: Charles Krupa) Tim Thomas was pulled for the sixth time this season, last night, as the Sabres downed
the Bruins, 3-2 at the TD Garden
BOSTON — The "giveaway" and "takeaway" stats in the NHL are tricky. NHL monitors in certain cities have different criteria for what merits a giveaway or a takeaway -- all depending on the individual. Some stingy. Some biased.
Last night against Buffalo, the Bruins were accounted for six giveaways in their 3-2 loss to the Sabres. But that number is certainly higher as they turned the puck over like a rotating turnstile throughout the 60 minute contest.
Before we get into the revolving door issues here; kudos must be in order to the Sabres team for their relentless forechecking, keeping the puck in the Bruins' zone, and clogging up the neutral zone.
But the end result: Bruins goaltender Tim Thomas gets pulled for the sixth time this season after allowing three goals on 14 Sabres shots in 26:08, as Boston fails to gain two much-needed-points in the Eastern Conference standings.
"We got our sticks in a good place quite a few times. If you defend and you’re in the right spot and you try to squeeze some pucks through you can get those opportunities." said Buffalo's head coach Lindy Ruff. "I thought tonight was one of those cases where there was quite a few that went our way."
Boston got on the board first tonight, as David Krejci lit the lamp for his 17th goal of the season -- a nifty highlight reel play. But just 2:23 later, Buffalo hit the back of the net on an ugly goal and never looked back.
"I think that first goal was one of those where we lost a battle on one side of the ice and when the puck was rimmed on the other side, it got through our forwards and they got a shot through that the puck had eyes." from Bruins' head coach Claude Julien. "It went underneath [Dennis] Wideman’s arm and I think Timmy [Thomas] was partially screened as well."
Mark Stuart attempted to dump the puck out of the zone with a half pass/half shot up the left boards. But the bouncing puck popped over Blake Wheeler's stick and landed right on Sabres' defenseman Tyler Myers'.
"Well, I noticed it was rolling a bit and I just decided to basically just whack at it towards the net and luckily it found a hole." said Myers.
One turnover resulting in a Sabres goal.
Buffalo struck again within two minutes to go ahead, 2-1 in the first period. Former Boston University star Mike Grier fed a rushing Myers through the neutral zone who rifled a wrist-shot on net. Thomas put a blocker on it and put the juicy rebound between Wideman (a missed clear) and Steve Begin (over-skated it). That's when a charging Paul Gaustad slapped it off Wideman's skate and past Thomas for the 2-1 lead.
"The second one, actually, I put the rebound exactly where I wanted to." said Thomas. "It was two Buffalo guys crashing the net and so I put it in the middle between the two of them and the black jerseys. They were coming back so hard that they overskated it, and a guy just whacked at it and then it hit something else and bounced over my pad."
Wideman finished the game with a team-worst minus-3 rating, and his overall play was quite indicative of that stat. But Dennis Seidenberg made the most costly of mistakes and turnovers, despite his offensive contributions: one goal, four shots on goal, plus-1, and 24:00 of ice time. No. 44 turned the puck over at his own blue-line -- mishandling the puck off the boards -- when Sabres' forward Drew Stafford chipped the puck to Derek Roy, who went in on a 2-on-1 with teammate Tyler Kennedy. Wideman and Thomas were the last line of defense.
3-1.
"Yeah, I wanted to hit Rex [Mark Recchi] going wide and it just slid a little bit off my stick and it went off the boards to the middle." said Seidenberg. "He picked it off and we just kind of turned if over and used it on a two on one and they scored." Dennis Seidenberg (third goal)
Enter, Tuukka Rask. Fortunately for the Bruins, Rask stopped the bleeding, but their lackadaisical control of the puck remained the same.
"When I came in, the game didn’t change at all." said Rask. "We gave up the puck at the blue lines, and a breakaway on our own power play. That’s why I didn’t think it was typical effort for our game."
What is one of the B's strongest points -- their blue-line and goaltending -- was one of their major faults last night. Sure, Thomas was far from spectacular and should have made at least one or two of those saves when called upon, but the Bruins gave the puck away to the Division-leading Sabres far too many times. Boston needs to do a better job of controlling the puck, especially in their own zone, to give their last line of defense a chance to succeed.
"It’s a game of inches and they were able to get their sticks on the puck to create turnovers." added Bruins' left-winger Milan Lucic. "We need to do a good job in the defensive zone when things like that happen."
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