Boston Bruins center David Krejci (46) celebrates after scoring the game winning goal during a shootout in an NHL hockey game against the Florida Panthers, Monday, Jan. 16, 2012, in Sunrise, Fla. The Bruins defeated the Panthers in a shootout 3-2. (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky)
In the first period, Patrice Bergeron scored his 13th goal of the season to give the Bruins a 1-0 lead. Late in the period, in the Bruins d-zone, Ed Jovanovski unintentionally hit Daniel Paille in the head with an elbow. Paille didn't like it and went at Jovanovski, skated away, Jovanovski gave Paille a whack with his stick, Paille then went back at Jovanovski and challenged him. Before Shawn Thornton could get there, Paille and Jovanovski dropped the gloves and went at it. Jovanovski controlled the fight, as Paille isn't a fighter, but that wasn't about winning the fight, it was about showing up which Paille did. Jovanovski didn't return to the game after this as he was said to have suffered an upper body injury. I'm going to guess a hand or shoulder injury as he was really swinging for the fences in some of the punches he threw. Update: some are saying that Jovanovski broke his hand in the fight.
In the second period, Jason Garrison scored for the Panthers to tie the game 1-1 as the puck went off Dennis Seidenberg's glove and into the net. Later the Bruins had a 5-on-3 power-play and Patrice Bergeron scored his 2nd goal of the game, his 14th goal of the season, to give the Bruins a 2-1 lead. After Shawn Matthias got out of the penalty box he had a breakaway and scored to tie the game 2-2.
In the third period, no scoring happened.
The game went into overtime and the Bruins killed off a 4-on-3 Panthers power-play. Nobody would score in the overtime period, so onto the shootout it went.
In the shootout: Rask stopped Marcel Goc. Clemmensen stopped Benoit Pouliot. Dmitry Kulikov missed the net. Tyler Seguin beat Clemmensen with a deke but his backhand missed the open upstairs of the net. Stephen Weiss scored on Rask as Rask tried a poke check that didn't work and Weiss had an open net. Patrice Bergeron scored to tie it. Mikael Samuelsson lost the puck and didn't manage to get a shot on Rask. David Krejci went five-hole and scored on Clemmensen to win the game for the Bruins.
Game notes
Rich Peverley was scratched from the game as he had a personal matter, so Zach Hamill was in the lineup. Peverley is expected to miss tomorrow's game as well.
The Bruins led the game in blocked shots 9-7. The Panthers led the game in shots 40-35 and faceoff wins 32-26. Both teams had 27 hits apiece.
The Bruins went 1-for-1 on the power-play while the Panthers went 0-for-2 on the power-play.
Tuukka Rask made 38 saves on 40 shots. Rask is now 11-4-1 with a 1.61 GAA and a .946 save percentage this season.
Patrice Bergeron had 2 goals and a shootout goal, was +1 and led the Bruins with 6 shots. He also went 11-13 in the faceoff circle.
Tyler Seguin had 2 assists, was +1 and he had 5 shots.
Gregory Campbell and Zdeno Chara led the Bruins with 5 hits apiece.
Unfortunately we didn't get to see another round of Shawn Thornton vs Krys Barch.
Onto the next one
The Bruins are now 29-12-1 with 59 points (1st place in Northeast Division and 2nd place in Eastern Conference) this season. The Bruins next game is tomorrow at the Tampa Bay Lightning at 7:30pm ET.
After tonight's game, Brad Marchand now has 1 game left to serve for his suspension.
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