Victory is transcendent for Habs, White

By Justin Rice
HockeyPrimeTime.com
Friday, November 06, 2009 19:07

BOSTON – While progress has come at a painful pace for the Boston Bruins this season, their archrival Montreal Canadiens — who have also been snakebitten by the injury bug — are moving in light years by comparison.

And the Habs, compared to the rest of the NHL, are still moving at a turtle’s pace.

In a game that saw the two original six franchises face off for the 700th time Thursday night, the Bruins (6-7) — despite losing one of their best scorers, David Krejci, to the H1NI virus — avoided their longest scoring drought in 80 years by 51.7 seconds.

Meanwhile, despite the fact that Montreal (8-8) needed extra time to win the 2-1 shootout, at least they could take stock in the fact that rookie Ryan White collected his first NHL point in his first NHL game.

“It wasn’t [pretty] but it’s my favorite one up to date I’ll tell you that,” White said of assisting on his team's only regulation goal. “It wasn’t like it was a nice backward pass or anything like that, but it was perfect and I wouldn’t want to get it any other way.”

What was started with White's utilitarian assist was finished spectacularly by former Bruin Glen Metropolit. The first-period goal came after White fed Andrei Kostitsyn in the neutral zone, poking a puck that popped out of a collision between Dennis Wideman and Matt Hunwick. Kostitsyn drove to the net, which he wrapped around from the left to the right and dumped the puck off to Metropolit in front of the goal at the 17:32 mark.

“It was beautiful; those guys made a great play,” White said. “I just made a little one in the zone but it worked out good.”

About five minutes later the Bruins had a goal disallowed after a replay showed the net was jarred off the hook before Patrice Bergeron knocked the puck in. But Bergeron would finally get a goal, the team’s first in 192:06, by slamming home a rebound off Derek Morris’s shot.

“Once again, it’s like a broken record,” Blake Wheeler said. “We say the same thing over and over again, night in, night out. You’ve got to be tired of it. You look around; we’ve got a lot of guys who can score goals and all of a sudden we are going on nine periods of no goals. We’ve got to take that to heart. We’ve got to take it personally.”

While the Bruins were glad to finally see the end of their goal-scoring drought, the game also marked the end of a losing streak for Habs goalkeeper Carey Price.

“I hadn’t won in six games, and that was not the time to get upset,” Price, who finished with 42 saves for his third win of the season, said of allowing Bergeron’s goal. “I had to refocus in a hurry because if I let it slip, then I lose another game.”

In the shootout Price stopped Wheeler, Bergeron and Mark Recchi while Montreal’s Mike Cammalleri beat Bruins netminder Tim Thomas on the only shootout goal to improve the Canadiens’ overtime mark to 7-0.

In the end, a game billed as a matchup between teams that are shadows of their previous selves transcended mediocrity through the sheer intensity of their historic rivalry.

“It’s always fun,” Metropolit told reporters before a which was the first meeting between the two teams since Boston knocked Montreal out of the playoffs last season. “Who knows what kind of rivalry we’ll start tonight?”

NOTEWORTHY: Wheeler was on the Krejci’s left wing Tuesday night, a day before Krejci was diagnosed with H1N1.

“Kind of took me by surprise, like everyone else,” he said. “I guess that’s the way the word is today. You’ve got to be careful. Obviously we wish him the best and a speedy recovery.”

The Bruins were quick to point out they had no plans to be vaccinated for the swine flu, unlike the Calgary Flames, who recently took heat for jumping ahead of eligible Alberta citizens who were waiting for innoculations.

“We do the best we can. David Krejci is not around the team, and hopefully that’s where it will stop, but there is no guarantee,” Bruins head coach Claude Julien said. “We are all vulnerable to it, we just have to deal with it the best way we can.”