Lightning Strike Once but Bruins Strike Four Times for First Season Win

The Boston Bruins played their second game of the season, and it's with another team they took out of the playoffs last season in the Tampa Bay Lightning.

Last season, the Eastern Conference Finals went the distance and it took one goal from Boston's Nathan Horton late in the final period to propel the Bruins to the Stanley Cup Finals.

The Lightning were looking to exact some revenge for the loss early in the new season.

The bad news for the Bolts is that they just came off a game against the Carolina Hurricanes the night before and had to immediately travel to the next game.

The Game

First Period

Nothing in scoring but lots of chances for the Bruins and Tampa Bay's Net minder, Mathieu Garon was sharp to prevent the Bruins from scoring while his Bruins counterpart, Tim Thomas had to make some great saves himself to keep the game knotted at a scoreless tie.

Second Period

Early in the frame, Brad Marchand skated around the net and wristed a shot from midway up the right point and i went off the post to sit on the left side.  Rich Peverley ended up popping it past Garon's ;eft sode to open the scoring. Marchand and Johnny Boychuk earned the helpers.  1-0 Bruins

With just 1:16 of play later, Martin St Louis took advantage of a turnover and he went on the breakaway to beat his former college team mate and got the puck past Thomas' right side.  That goal was St Louis' 300th career tally.  The assists went to Ryan Malone and Vincent Lecavalier.  Game knotted at one apiece.

Another 1:38 later, Adam McQuaid received a drop pass from Tyler Seguin to the point and he one-timed it  and it got tipped past a screened Garon by Daniel Paille to allow the Bruins to regain the one-goal lead.  McQuaid and Seguin earned the assists.  2-1 Bruins.

To this point, all scoring occurred inside of 2:54 of play. 

Final Frame

Early in the period, David Krejci benefited from a juicy rebound off Milan Lucic's bad angle shot at Garon from the right side.  The puck ended up mid way up the slot and Krejci ripped it past Garon to extend the lead to two goals.  Lucic and Seguin got the helpers.  3-1 Bruins.

The Bruins extended their lead to three goals on Peverley.

Patrice Bergeron made the spinning shot on net and the puck hit Garon, but the puck trickled to his left.  Peverley was right there to pot in his second of the game.  Bergeron and Marchand is credited for the assists.  That ended up being the final score of 4-1 for the Bruins.

The Good

B's got their first win and played a full 60 minutes.

Bruins's puck support and defense pinching in allowed them to play the vast majority of the game in the Bolts' end.

Thomas played very well.  Faced only 26 shots, but he prevented all but one from going in.

Rich Peverley.  He seemed to be there when he was needed and hopefully he is the plug for the hole that was left there by Mark Recchi's absence.

Garon was very good in this game, but could not stop all of the 42-shot barrage he faced.

The Bad

Tampa had to travel and play their second game in as many days.

42 shots on Tampa's net.  Defense was not that great for Tampa Bay.  Sure they played back to back, but this is just the 3rd game of their season.

The Ugly

Pretty much The Bad.

My Take

The Bruins stepped up and played very well and showed that they still have what it takes to take on a very good team.  The first game they lost was a 2-1 game and against another good team.

That being said, I felt it seemed that they are clicking and will continue to improve on their play as a team as the new kids on the block continue to learn to play Coach Claude Julien's system.

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