"You can ask any goalie," Thomas said. "It's not fun to use anybody else's stuff. You're used to your own. But whatever. That's hockey. Fortunately, Manny must have a fairly large head, too. With most goalies, I couldn't fit their mask on."
In a game in which the Bruins felt they couldn't catch any breaks, Columbus scored the winning goal with Thomas wearing Fernandez's mask. The Blue Jackets tacked on an empty-net strike with 26.7 seconds remaining to claim a 2-0 win before 16,675 at Nationwide Arena.
"We get traffic and it doesn't come to our sticks," said Marc Savard. "It's not an excuse. But that one shift there at the end with [David Krejci's] line, the puck's out front, you've got guys falling like bowling pins and it doesn't pop out to us. It pops out to them.
"It feels like that's the kind of streak we're on."
Prior to the winning goal, Zdeno Chara was called for high-sticking R.J. Umberger at 4:55 of the third. The Bruins had seemingly killed Chara's penalty, but with five seconds remaining on the power play, the Blue Jackets scored the only goal they needed.
Raffi Torres took a dish from former Senator Antoine Vermette, skated down the right wing, and let loose a sharp-angle wrister. But after seeing the shot jump off Torres's stick, the next thing Thomas spotted was the puck sitting in his net at 6:50.
"I saw the release," said Thomas (32 saves). "Bars are in different places. The chin's longer. Got handcuffed."
At 10:01, the Bruins equipment staff, having rigged a new chinstrap, completed repairs on Thomas's mask (they also had to perform a first-intermission fix when a shot dented the cage). But the damage was done.
"It's a matter of timely goals and timely saves," said coach Claude Julien. "Right now, we're not getting either. Lately, it's been that way. It makes for tough losses like tonight. I think it was two teams playing a pretty good game until that goal was scored."
