Boston Bruins Finish Road Trip with a Perfect 6-0-0

The Bruins are on a tear. Sure, the scoring wasn't high-flying, but in the last six games, it was better than their opponents'. The B's out scored the opposition 20-7.

The Beantown squad walked away from a six-game road trip with three of those games in the west with a perfect 6-0-0 record, extending their lead in the Northeastern Division and holding a legitimate third place in the Eastern Conference. They are tied with Tampa Bay with 81 points, but Tampa bay currently has a game in hand.

The Bruins ended their road trip at Scotiabank Place in Ottawa to take on the Senators last night. In their last meeting, Boston won 4-2.

This game was their fifth meeting and before this game, Boston had a 3-1 series lead.

The game details will be short and sweet (if you are a Bruins fan, that is)

The Game

First Period

No Scoring

Second Period

No Scoring.

There was some close ones on both ends, mere seconds apart. Patrice Bergeron passed the puck to Mark Recchi, who had the WIDE open net to Craig Anderson's right side, but Derek Smith was swing around and somehow his skate was in the right place at the right time to deflect the puck harmlessly to the right to Bobby Butler. Butler then made a long pass to a streaking Jason Spezza, who was off to the races. Spezza was 1-on-1 with Rask and tried to beat him at the five hole, but Rask closed the door on that and nothing materialized of it.

In the dying seconds of the period, Butler shot the puck and beat Rask, but not the post. Ryder went the other way, receiving a pass from Rich Peverley, but the backhand attempt was stopped by Anderson who was square to Ryder.

One of Chara's shots nearly went in as Anderson was deep in his crease and the puck rolled in between the pad and post, but the video review did not show the puck crossing the line.

Third Period

Within the first two minutes of the final frame, the Bruins solved Anderson and found that they had to go in dirty.

Brad Marchand was crowding the net and almost got knocked into Anderson. He pivoted back in front to see Adam McQuaid's shot stopped by Anderson. Marchand quickly swiped at the puck to roll it to away from Anderson just to his front left only to have Nathan Horton pop it up and in to make it count.

That turned out to be the winning goal as the Bruins officially won the series at 4-1-0 with one more contest in their second-to-last game in April.

Rask was solid, stopping all 33 shots faced, which is a much better improvement after facing only 17 shots in his last game and allowing two goals.

The last 6-0-0 road trip for the Bruins was March 22 to April 4, 2009. They also did this in the '71-'72 season, in which the Bruins won the cup (the last time they won it).

The trip also gave them an NHL-best 22-7-4 road record this season.

The Good

The Bruins were very disciplined, earning two penalties and both of them were in the third period. Rask was solid. He stopped key shots and opportunities and received some luck of the post to maintain his eighth career shutout. Defensively, with the glaring exception of Jason Spezza's run, the B's kept to their roles and played them well.

The Bad

Outside of the lack of shots on the Ottawa net (Anderson generally wins when facing 21 shots), the only bad I have is the defensive breakdown that allowed Spezza to have a free crack at opening the scoring of the game.

The Ugly

No ugly tonight. Both teams played well and the minor stuff was just bad worthy.

My Take

The Bruins are on a tear and are playing well both offensively and defensively. They need to carry this play into the playoffs. While they did play some teams that they should beat, they did play some teams that were in a hot streak in the Calgary Flames and the Vancouver Canucks (one of the cup favorites) as well.

Boston's pieces are coming together and it seems that the new additions are getting some results that are helping the B's head into the playoffs in a good note. With just 19 games left of the regular season, the B's need to keep the squad healthy and hope that none of the key players are hurt like last year with Savard not near 100 percent and David Krejci taken out of the playoffs with the Mike Richards' hit (The Bruins lost all four games after Krejci was taken out).

That was then and this is now. If there is any living in the past, it would be the Bruins not wanting to repeat that kind of history.

This is Cory Ducey saying "Hit Hard, But Keep It Clean"