Thomas gets Bruins the win

Boston Bruins' Johnny Boychuk, center, celebrates his goal against the Carolina Hurricanes with Michael Ryder (73) and Nathan Horton (18) during the first period of an NHL hockey game in Raleigh, N.C., Tuesday, Jan. 18, 2011. Boston won 3-2. (AP Photo/Gerry Broome)

Without Tim Thomas the Bruins would not have won tonight's game against the Carolina Hurricanes. Thomas was aggressive at times and made some huge saves. Carolina was controlling most of the play for the second and third periods as it looked like Boston was sitting back and just dumping the puck out of its zone, just as the collapse in Montreal not too long ago. But the Bruins offense buried their chances to get the lead again in the third period to win the game.

In the first period, Johnny Boychuk scored a power-play goal, his 1st goal of the season. Jussi Jokinen would score to tie the game up.

In the second period, no scoring happened.

In the third period, Brad Marchand scored his 10th goal of the season to give the Bruins a 2-1 lead. Later, Chad LaRose scored to tie the game 2-2. On the power-play, Milan Lucic scored his 17th goal of the season to give the Bruins the 3-2 lead. The game would end 3-2.

Tim Thomas made 43 saves on 45 shots. Thomas is now 22-4-6, with a 1.83 GAA, and a .945 save percentage.

The Hurricanes led the game in shots 45-28 and led in faceoff wins 33-32.

Some notes about the game
The Bruins did not look good in this game and owe the win to Tim Thomas playing spectacular.

Props to Johnny Boychuk and Shawn Thornton with two big open-ice hits in the third period.

There were a lot of weak penalty calls in this game.

The Bruins are now 6-2-2 in their last 10 games.

Onto the next one
The Bruins next game is on Thursday against the Buffalo Sabres at Boston.