"It's great for every player," Marc Savard said of the team's nonmovement at the trade deadline. "[Chiarelli] believes in every guy in here. And why wouldn't he?"
Tim Thomas had to make several sparklers to keep the Senators off the scoreboard. But for the most part, the Bruins played a complete game in front of their goaltender, who redeemed himself after a shaky start against Florida last week.
"I think it was important for me to come back with a strong game after the last outing," said Thomas (22 saves). "The team played well in front of me and made my job a lot easier. It was great to get the win. It was important for me, but also important for the team to keep this streak rolling."
Lately, the Garden hadn't been the most hospitable environment. While the Bruins secured 9 of 10 possible points during their five-game roadie, they had dropped their last four matches at home. Starting last night, six of the Bruins' next seven matches are at home, so they knew they had to start strong against the reeling Senators, who were coming off a 5-0 dud against Toronto Monday.
In a rare move, coach Claude Julien sent out his fourth line to start the night. Jeremy Reich, Vladimir Sobotka, and Shawn Thornton opened the game by playing their usual wrecking-ball style, which carried over later in the period when they connected for the first goal - against Ottawa's top shutdown pair of Chris Phillips and Anton Volchenkov, no less.
Sobotka, stickhandling along the right wall, turned Phillips inside out, then slid the puck to Thornton in the slot. Volchenkov hit the deck to block Thornton's shot, but his wrister slid underneath the defenseman and dribbled through the pads of goalie Martin Gerber at 5:24.
