Bruins beat struggling Sabres

BUFFALO, NY - NOVEMBER 03: Patrice Bergeron #37 of the Boston Bruins (C) scores a first period shorthanded goal against the Buffalo Sabres at the HSBC Arena on November 3, 2010 in Buffalo, New York. (Photo by Bruce Bennett/Getty Images)

The Bruins continued their hot streak last night beating the struggling Buffalo Sabres 5-2. The Bruins played well the first two periods capitalizing on some Sabres mistakes and just outplaying them. In the third period though it seemed they sat back and the Sabres tried to come back but they didn't have enough to come back from the hole they were in. Tim Thomas was in net for the Bruins and made 33 saves on 35 shots to get his 7th win this season. Thomas is now 7-0-0, with a .977 save percentage, and a 0.72 GAA.

In the first period, Brad Marchand scored his 1st NHL goal on a shorthanded breakaway. Thank you Tim Connolly for that pass to no one which created the breakaway for Marchand. On another penalty kill, Patrice Bergeron scored a shorthanded goal (his 2nd goal of the season) by outworking the Sabres, even being outnumbered in the Sabres zone. Two minutes later Blake Wheeler finally got his 1st goal of the season from a nice feed from Michael Ryder from behind the net.

In the second period, Michael Ryder scored his 3rd goal of the season.

In the third period, Milan Lucic added an empty net goal to put away the Sabres, his 5th goal of the season.

Some notes from the game:
Punk of the game goes to... I want to say Patrick Kaleta just because he is a punk but it goes to Tyler Myers for glove punching Mark Recchi in the head with the stick in his hand in the second period. Recchi went down from the cheapshot and Myers got called for a roughing penalty. Recchi got up and skated down the ice and took a whack at Myers. Surprisingly, Recchi didn't get called for a retaliation penalty. Myers, looking like Wideman last night with those bad turnovers, even though you're having a bad second year, there's no reason for that cheapshot.

Congrats to Brad Marchand for his first NHL goal. He's been playing much better the past two games. He just needs to continue to stay out of the box.

Props for Milan Lucic for giving Patrick Kaleta a gloved punch during a scrum, which made Kaleta's visor cut his own face. If you're going to play that way and wear a visor that's what you deserve. Kaleta was taking runs at Bruins the whole game, luckily they saw him coming and were able to side-step and avoid his charges.

Kaleta's charges at Bruins is what prompted Mark Stuart to go after him in the second period and of course Kaleta does his best at diving and Cody McCormick came in and fought Stuart.

The Sabres are good at diving and drawing penalties. Although I didn't see Derek Roy dive once which is a surprise.

The Sabres are possibly the softest team in the Eastern Conference.

I was curious to see if Zdeno Chara and Paul Gaustad would continue their little rivalry from last years playoffs but nothing happened between those two.

Looking ahead:
The Bruins next game is on Friday at the Washington Capitals. The Bruins are currently 2nd in the division, 1 point behind the Montreal Canadiens, with 3 games in hand.