On Hockey

Phil Stacey

BOSTON - Remember that old "Seinfeld" episode where Jerry dated a woman who looked great in a certain light - but hideous in others?

The Boston Bruins can relate.

Less than 48 hours removed from getting pummelled (again) by the Canadiens in Montreal, the Bruins did a complete 180 back on home ice last night. With four different players scoring, they had few troubles in dispatching the New York Islanders, 4-1, at the Garden.

"This one was important for a number of reasons," said goaltender Tim Thomas, who stopped 28 shots. "Most importantly, for our self confidence."

The Bruins did something they don't often have the chance to do: play with a 4-goal lead. They responded to that challenge, remaining focused and executing the small things that help win hockey games.

When the Bruins play responsible team defense, get balanced scoring and come out as resilient on the penalty kill as they did last night, they can be fun to watch. They might not be the most exciting team to come flying down the rink, but when you win, people don't complain.

But this team isn't good enough to play that way all the time. So when that certain ugly light creeps up - like the 8-2 pasting they suffered against the hated Habs - they look like a team that might struggle playing Catholic Memorial.

Fortunately for the team wearing black sweaters, that never really came into play last night. Coming out with a fire that was missing two days ago north of the border, they scored twice within the game's first 101/2 minutes, tallied on each of their first two power plays and never really let the visitors from Long Island have a sniff at two points.

"We got back to playing 60 minutes of good hockey," said rookie left wing Milan Lucic, the fan favorite who scored his fifth goal of the season. "We talked before the game about what we wanted to do, putting that (Montreal) game behind us while also learning from it. I think we were able to do that."

Strangely, the Bruins improved to 6-0 this year following a loss to Montreal. "That's great; I just wish we didn't have to come back from such a bad loss to begin with," mused head coach Claude Julien.

The Bruins' four goals last night came from four very different type of players: a budding power play threat from the point (defenseman Dennis Wideman); a player more known for his fisticuffs, but growing into a solid two-way player (Lucic); the team's hands down best playmaker and skilled forward (Marc Savard); and a 20-year-old with world class speed who, if he can somehow put it all together, might be a 40-goal scorer some day (Phil Kessel).

A power play tally from Wideman and a pretty wrister from Lucic, all within a span of 52 seconds, gave the Bruins a 2-0 lead midway through the first. That might as well have been 20-0, with the struggles that Winthrop's Rick DiPietro displayed in the Isles' net and the overall lethargy shown by the visitors.

Savard netted the game's prettiest goal, a bad angle slapper from between the goal line and the bottom of the circle to DiPietro's left midway through the second period. By the time Kessel's man-advantage snapshot from the dot eked through the keeper's legs late in the middle stanza, this one was all but over.

Last night's victory saw Boston leapfrog the Islanders in the standings, sending them into this weekend's All-Star break in Atlanta with 54 points, good for seventh overall in the Eastern Conference.

"At this point, it's about chasing the teams in front of us (in the standings) and stop looking at those teams behind us," said Savard, who will join Thomas and captain Zdeno Chara for the All-Star festivities in Atlanta this weekend. "That's how we'll move up in the standings."

With 33 games to play over the next two-and-a-half months, the Bruins can pretty much determine their own fate. Earn points in, say, two-thirds of those games, and a playoff spot is pretty much a sure thing. Start falling apart defensively like a hippo on thin ice, and it's another spring of time spent on the links.

"There's a little more than a third of the season to go, so they're all important now," said Lucic, whose screen of DiPietro helped Kessel score his goal. "Beating those teams in front of us - that's the bottom line."

Getting some of their banged-up bodies back from the injured list (Glenn Murray, P.J. Axelsson, Andrew Alberts) or perhaps making an impact trade will only help down the stretch.

Julien, the first-year coach, believes what you saw last night was "the real deal" from his team. A schedule where the Bruins play virtually every other night for the rest of the season will put that theory to the test.

"To a certain degree, the playoffs start after the All-Star break," Julien conceded. "The players have shown me they're willing to do whatever it takes to succeed. But the only way to do it is by proving it."

Phil Stacey is the sports editor of The Salem News. Contact him at pstacey@salemnews.com or at 978-338-2650.