Boston Bruins

Final: Boston Bruins 7, Toronto Maple Leafs 0 The Bruins closed out the season series against the Maple Leafs in rousing fashion with a dominant 7-0 thumping Monday night before a TD Garden crowd of 17,565. It was Boston's sixth win of the season vs. Toronto, by a combined margin of 36-10. Boston erupted for four goals in the first to chase Toronto's starting goaltender James Reimer from the game as Benoit Pouliot recorded his third multiple-point game of the season with an assist on Chris Kelly's game-opening goal at 2:25 of the first and a pair of goals at 10:58 of the first...

The NHL's conference finals opened over the weekend without some of the top teams and big stars that highlighted the regular season. Long gone are Pittsburgh's powerful point producers — Evgeni Malkin and Sidney Crosby. With them went the Presidents' Trophy winners, the Vancouver Canucks, the No. 1 seed in the West, who were trying to return to the Stanley Cup Finals for a second season. The team that defeated the Canucks last June — the Boston Bruins — also are gone, guaranteeing there will be a new champion.

The NHL's conference finals opened over the weekend without some of the top teams and big stars that highlighted the regular season. Long gone are Pittsburgh's powerful point producers — Evgeni Malkin and Sidney Crosby. With them went the Presidents' Trophy winners, the Vancouver Canucks, the No. 1 seed in the West, who were trying to return to the Stanley Cup Finals for a second season. The team that defeated the Canucks last June — the Boston Bruins — also are gone, guaranteeing there will be a new champion.

An estimated 400 people gathered this afternoon on the Summer Street bridge in the annual "Stand Against Racism" rally, with many saying a flap over racist tweets after Wednesday's Bruins game highlighted the need to make more progress against bias. "I guess you don't have to look any further than what happened on Wednesday. That's all the more reason why activities like this are important," said Charlayne Murrell-Smith, 61, of Roxbury.

Pioneers of racial tolerance in sports, the Boston Bruins in 1958 became the first National Hockey League team to sign an African-American player, making Willie O'Ree the Jackie Robinson of hockey. Yet they found themselves Thursday addressing hateful racist commentary circulated by Bruins fans and others on social media after Joel Ward, a black forward for the Washington Capitals, scored the winning goal in overtime of Game 7 in the first round of the Stanley Cup playoffs Wednesday at TD Garden.

Pioneers of racial tolerance in sports, the Boston Bruins in 1958 became the first National Hockey League team to sign an African-American player, making Willie O'Ree the Jackie Robinson of hockey. Yet they found themselves Thursday addressing hateful racist commentary circulated by Bruins fans and others on social media after Joel Ward, a black forward for the Washington Capitals, scored the winning goal in overtime of Game 7 in the first round of the Stanley Cup playoffs Wednesday at TD Garden.

So, which one you want to go with? EA Sports' NHL '11 video game simulation has the Vancouver Canucks besting the Boston Bruins in a seven-game Stanley Cup Final. What If Sports has the Boston Bruins besting the Vancouver Canucks in a seven-game series. Stan Fischler , meanwhile, apparently has the Canucks winning the thing in three games.

The future general manager of the Boston Bruins, not even in grade school at the time, was late for dinner. Frank Chiarelli wasn't concerned because his 4-year-old son, Peter, was in the yard, banging around with his older brother's new bike. It was Michael's shiny two-wheeler . . . the one without the training wheels . . . the one everyone knew, or assumed, Peter was too young to ride. No point in everybody waiting, said Frank, and the Chiarellis began to eat. Food rolled out, plates were cleaned, and still no Peter at the dinner table.

The Bruins visited the White House today and were greeted by President Barack Obama, who made some brief remarks about the players and was given a black-and-gold hockey jersey with No. 11 on the back. It's a tradition for teams that win major championships to be greeted by the president. The Major League Baseball champion St. Louis Cardinals made their visit last week. "I am happy to welcome the Stanley Cup champion Boston Bruins to the White House," Obama said. "I'm sure they are wicked happy to be here.

About 30 seconds into the third period of Union College's hockey game against Princeton, Fitzy gets excited. This is a big deal. Fitzy doesn't get excited at hockey games. "Honest to God, I don't," he'll say if you ask him. "I'm just trying to do my job. " But sure enough, on that frigid February night in Schenectady, the guy he drove more than three hours to watch makes a play that stops him mid-sentence. "This kid cou – oohhh, would you look at that pass," he says to fellow Boston Bruins scout Ryan Nadeau, standing next to him. "Wow, look at that," Nadeau says, smiling.

Two days after a barrage of racist tweets followed a Bruins game, an annual rally against racism in downtown Boston took on stronger purpose. Stand Against Racism, coordinated by YWCA Boston, is annually held on the last Friday in April. This year, many of the estimated 400 participants lined up on the sides of the Summer Street Bridge in Fort Point, signs and noisemakers in hand, and pointed to the tweeting to explain the importance of their event, which aims to raise awareness that racism still exists.

Pioneers of racial tolerance in sports, the Boston Bruins in 1958 became the first National Hockey League team to sign an African-American player, making Willie O'Ree the Jackie Robinson of hockey. Yet they found themselves Thursday addressing hateful racist commentary circulated by Bruins fans and others on social media after Joel Ward, a black forward for the Washington Capitals, scored the winning goal in overtime of Game 7 in the first round of the Stanley Cup playoffs Wednesday at TD Garden.

Pioneers of racial tolerance in sports, the Boston Bruins in 1958 became the first National Hockey League team to sign an African-American player, making Willie O'Ree the Jackie Robinson of hockey. Yet they found themselves Thursday addressing hateful racist commentary circulated by Bruins fans and others on social media after Joel Ward, a black forward for the Washington Capitals, scored the winning goal in overtime of Game 7 in the first round of the Stanley Cup playoffs Wednesday at TD Garden.

It had all the makings of a feel-good hockey moment — except the guy who scored the goal was black. Soon after Joel Ward eliminated the defending Stanley Cup champion Boston Bruins on Wednesday with a Game 7 overtime goal for the Washington Capitals, Twitter erupted in a shower of n-words and other racial insults. "Go play basketball, hockey is a white sport," "4th line black trash" and "white power" were some of the nicer phrases tweeted by angry Boston fans. One said that the fact that a black player scored "makes this loss hurt a lot more.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Tyler Seguin scored at 3:17 of overtime, Tim Thomas made 36 saves, and the Boston Bruins beat the Washington Capitals 4-3 on Sunday to tie the first-round Eastern Conference playoff series at three games apiece. The defending Stanley Cup champion Bruins never trailed, but needed a stolen pass and a deft bit of skating to finally get the decisive goal and avoid being eliminated by the seventh-seeded Capitals. Game 7 is Wednesday night in Boston. In overtime, David Krejci intercepted a pass by Nicklas Backstrom and sent the...

BOSTON (AP) — Troy Brouwer scored on a power play with 1:27 left, giving the Washington Capitals a 4-3 victory Saturday and moving the defending champion Boston Bruins a loss away from elimination. Brouwer gave the Capitals a 3-2 series lead with his second goal of the playoffs, beating goalie Tim Thomas over the glove with a wrist shot from the right circle. It came with 37 seconds left on a slashing penalty against Benoit Pouliot. The Bruins, who trailed 2-0 and 3-2, tied it at 8:47 of the third period on Johnny Boychuk's goal.

The defense tightened, the bottom lines contributed and the San Jose Sharks put together the kind of complete performance that was lacking in two lackluster losses earlier in the week. Now they need to figure out how to duplicate this performance down the stretch if they want to make it back to the postseason. Daniel Winnik scored his first goal with San Jose to give the Sharks' playoff hopes a needed boost with a 2-1 victory over the defending Stanley Cup champion Boston Bruins on Thursday night.

Boston Bruins goalie Tim Thomas is not in the starting lineup a day after skipping the White House ceremony honoring the team for its 2011 Stanley Cup Championship. Tuukka Rask started for the Bruins in the Tuesday night game against the Washington Capitals. Thomas caused a controversy Monday when he didn't accompany the team to the White House. He said in a statement that he stayed away because he believes the federal government "has grown out of control. "

Until a week ago, Braden Holtby's only NHL playoff experience came from watching games on TV with his buddies. Still, the 22-year-old goalie for the Washington Capitals thinks like a veteran. When Holtby was so-so in Washington's Game 3 loss in its first-round series against the reigning Stanley Cup champion Boston Bruins, he didn't let it bother him. And when the kid gave up a tying goal through his legs in Game 4, he shook that off, too. The postseason rookie was superb before and after that one blip Thursday night, finishing with 44 saves, and Alexander Semin scored the...