The Bruins played hard and physical hockey for most of the game against the Buffalo Sabres on Saturday. They did blow a two goal lead in the second period though. That is something they have to work on fixing. The game went to the shootout and in the 8th round Petr Tenkrat, who hasn't done much at all this season, scored the winner against Ryan Miller. The Bruins got an energy boost early when Jeremy Reich dropped the gloves with Sabres' Adam Mair. Mair, who knocked out Bruins' rookie David Krejci on January 30th with a late hit, exchanged punches with Reich, and Reich got in more punches on Mair to get the decision in that bout.Reich talks about the fight after the game:
"It was just a matter of letting them know that we're going to be playing physical, too. And you want to let other teams know that. Any time there's a fight, it brings a little energy to the building. If that's what I have to do to get things going, then that's fine."
Later in the first period Bruins' defenseman Andrew Ference and Sabres' forward Jochen Hecht were sticking each other and cross-checking each other in front of the Bruins' net. They then dropped the gloves and had a good spirited fight. Ference landed some good shots on Hecht and Hecht landed one big punch, but the win goes to Ference in that fight. You can watch both the Reich-Mair fight and the Ference-Hecht fight on our Bruins Videos page.
Marc Savard did take a bad unsportsmanlike conduct penalty in the second period. Savard needs to stop taking bad penalties and control himself. He had that reputation with the Atlanta Thrashers as well. He has 68 PIMs this season, most if not all have been two-minute penalties (he might have got a 10 misconduct this season, I can't remember). For a guy who doesn't fight, those PIMs are too high, especially since he's the Bruins' points leader. On BostonHerald.com it said that Savard took the team out to dinner later after the game (probably to make up for that bad penalty).
The Bruins play against the Philadelphia Flyers later tonight. The Flyers are coming off a physical tough game against the New York Rangers. Watch for the Flyers to play physical tonight against the Bruins and there may be a scrap between Jeremy Reich and Todd Fedoruk or Ben Eager.
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