9 Is Fine: Boston Bruins Take the Montreal Canadiens in a 1-0 Win

The Boston Bruins visit their long-time divisional rivals, the Montreal Canadiens, and are looking to notch another in the win column and make it nine in a row.

In the last two meetings this season, the Canadiens have taken the wins and they were both close with 2-1 and 4-2 victories, respectively.

The Canadiens have seem to own the Bruins in the regular season. In the postseason, as of late, is when the Bruins seem to make their wins count.

Game three of six tonight.

In the first frame, there was a lot of cautious play, but the score board was broken in by Bruin defence man Andrew Ference.

Rich Peverley got a short pass from Kelly and Peverley slipped a pass to a charging Ference who whipped a shot over Carey Price's left shoulder to end his shut-out streak to 148 minutes and 11 seconds.

Second period yielded nothing on the scoreboard.

The fans booed Chara virtually each and every time that he touched the puck, but Chara's physical play was not affected.

Late in the third, Peverley was called for the cross check on Mike Cammalleri and the Habs were on the man advantage with 1:39 left and were playing six on four.

The Canadiens could not generate many chances. In the dying seconds a centering pass in front of Thomas went off Max Pacioretty, but it redirected right out of the Bruins' zone.

The Boston Bruins took the Canadiens for the first time this season on the lone goal by Ference.

This is Tim Thomas' third shutout in eight games and 29th of his career.

This was a hard fought game. The Bruins only let Price have it 18 times where was the Habs desperately peppered Thomas 33 times and the one that got away was on the Habs net.

The puck support on the Bruins part was very good and what shots that Thomas did see were mostly shots that he would be able to stop on any given night.

Price had to suffer the defeat and was shaky at times in the net, having committed a couple of turnovers that nearly cost them more than just one goal.

The loss could not be squarely placed on Price.

The Habs had a four minute power play and they could not generate much. Same went for the 6-4 in the last minute and a half.

This is a team that heavily depends on their power play to get them back into or win the games. Tonight the Bruins stifling defence made the difference.

They played relatively disciplined hockey with the exception of a few boneheaded moves. Benoit Pouliot took exception on a hit to him by Alexei Emelin. It was a clean hit and it was a disappointing undisciplined play on Pouliot's part.

In fact, less than five minutes later, he was called for the double minor clipping P.K. Subban and drawing blood. After he served the penalty, he was benched for the remainder of the game.

The Bruins are now on top of their division and second in the Eastern Conference after being in the basement for October.

Whoever is talking about the "Hangover" now has not watched the month of November.

NEXT UP

Next up are the Buffalo Sabres and the match up a few folks want to see after Milan Lucic knocked over Buffalo goalie Ryan Miller.

Folks are asking, can the Sabres respond to Lucic's hit on their star net minder? It will be an interesting game to be sure.

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