Devils silence Bruins

Scoring woes continue as win streak ends at 4

November 28, 2009|Kevin Paul Dupont, Globe Staff

The not-quite-ready-for-regulation-time Bruins played into overtime again yesterday - for the fourth time in five games - and their payoff was a 2-1 shootout loss to the Devils that ended Boston’s season-high four-game winning streak.

The loss also had to raise concerns about Boston’s overall ability to score goals, which some two months into the 2009-10 season isn’t happening with enough regularity to think this is a team that can challenge for the Stanley Cup.

Yesterday’s lone Black-and-Gold goal was scored by Blake Wheeler, who was bumped up to the No. 1 line upon learning that Milan Lucic will be sidelined for the next month with an ankle sprain. Only 12 seconds into the third period, Wheeler hammered in a doorstep forehander, off a pretty feed by Byron Bitz, ending Martin Brodeur’s shutout bid, and also ending Boston’s scoring for the day (other than the one Wheeler potted in the shootout).

In four of their last six games, the Bruins have been able to muster but one goal in 240 minutes of regulation. Despite their offensive struggles, they have been winning, in large part because of the superlative netminding provided by Tuukka Rask, who yesterday, in his sixth straight start, turned back 36 shots.

Rask and partner Tim Thomas, who could play tonight with the Senators in town, are capable of providing that kind of netminding on a nightly basis. But as winning formulas go, such little offense has a way of catching up to teams, especially come playoff time.

In 25 games thus far, Boston’s goal scorers have connected only 55 times, or 2.2 goals per game. Last season the Bruins scored 270 times in 82 games, or 3.29 per game. They need to get their scorers more engaged.

“It’s a team thing to me,’’ said coach Claude Julien, reflecting on his squad’s need to score more “dirty’’ goals, the product of hard work and determination around the net. “You have to decide if you want to go to the net, or feel you have to go to the net.’’

Case in point was New Jersey’s lone regulation goal, mashed into the net by the talented and ever-gritty Zach Parise, who kept pressing in the crease after Rask had made two stops. Withstanding the various bangs, hacks, and pushes, Parise finally knocked his 14th of the season by Rask.

As Julien noted, Parise might get 50 this season, and it’s a good bet that half his total will be generated off his attitude around the cage. It’s that same attitude that makes him a lead-pipe cinch to be on the US Olympic team headed to Vancouver in February.

“My skate was on the post,’’ lamented Rask, going over the dynamics of the Parise strike, “and Parise jammed his full body into my pads. So . . . ?’’