Bruins untap a six-pack

The win, only their third in 12 games (3-5-4), did not allow the Bruins to gain any substantive ground on their key competition for the last couple of postseason berths. They remained in eighth place, the final seed, tucked 2 points behind the Flyers and 3 back of the Rangers. The Capitals, 3-2 shootout winners over the Hurricanes, remained in ninth place and still trail the Bruins by only 2 points - although Washington has played one more game than the Bruins.

"It has been such a long time," said Boston coach Claude Julien, musing over the 3-0 lead his offensively challenged bunch built midway through the second period. "I can't remember the last time I had that luxury."

The half-dozen goals were the most scored by Boston since a 6-3 win over the Flyers Nov. 26. Faced with a fairly flat Leaf squad, the Bruins scored twice on the power play (Glen Murray and Marco Sturm) and four times at even strength (David Krejci, Shawn Thornton, Phil Kessel, and Jeremy Reich). Pretty impressive for a club that had managed to squeeze out only five goals across its previous three games, and but 16 over its previous 11.

The raw number of goals aside, the Bruins' biggest improvement, by far, was their presence and willingness around the net. Finally, after weeks of hearing Julien and his staff implore them to get in front of the net, hang near the posts, fight for territory, they showed the necessary gumption it takes to put the puck in the net, rather than just buzz around it like a bunch of pollen-collecting drones on a hot summer's day.

Murray opened the scoring by tipping in a Lashoff shot from above the left circle. Murray, blanked for 11 straight games, was where he had to be, standing in the shooting lane, where he provided the deflection that eluded Vesa Toskala. Krejci potted the 2-0 lead because he was right on the doorstep to gather in a Sturm rebound to pop it over Toskala. Sturm was parked directly off the right post, where he easily cashed a pretty cross-slot feed from Krejci.

All in all, simple positioning, and fairly easy goals. Not very complicated work, really, but it does . . . take . . . work.