The Atlantic Division leading Bruins have somehow managed to stay afloat, even as injuries have forced them to put out lineups that have fans checking roster sheets and giving Google a workout, and over their last three matches, they’ve caught fire. In games against Buffalo, Nashville, and last night’s 5-0 win over Ottawa, they’ve outscored their opponents by a combined score of 15-3.
In a low-scoring NHL where goaltending is more important than ever, Tuukka Rask definitely earned his pay. Rask was impenetrable all night long, even in the face of early pressure. He carried the team through a meager first period in which they only mustered five shots. After the game, he said “[the Senators] pretty much had all of their best chances in that first period. We had five

[shots], so that will tell us a lot about that period I think. We weren’t skating, we weren’t hitting, we weren’t as sharp with our passes as we were in the last two periods. And we talked about it after the first and fixed it, and were pretty dominant after that.” While he lacked highlight reel saves, Rask played a very sound, conservative game that completely stifled Ottawa all night. The shutout is Rask’s fourth of the season and second in his last four starts.
After sleepwalking through most of the first period, the Bruins unleashed a rampage of shots in the second, outshooting Ottawa 20-8 in 20 minutes. Ottawa goaltender Robin Lehner stood tall for most of the period but he had to be visited by the training staff for an apparent shoulder problem. He remained in the game but was ineffective for final period and a half. After the game he said, “I don’t want to let in five goals, and you know what? I felt pretty good for a while, and I don’t know what happened. We just stopped playing.”
The Bruins  were finally able to break through at 16:29 in the second with Jared Cowen in the box for high sticking Jerome Iginla redirected a bomb from Milan Lucic through traffic and past Lehner. David Krejci tacked on a second score 38 seconds into the third with a phenomenal shot that he snuck by Lehner from an awkward angle. He was nearly parallel with the red line when he released it.
Reilly Smith scored his 13th of the season on a perfectly executed two on one in tandem with Brad Marchand, who faked out Lehner and froze him just prior to making the pass, leaving the net wide open, and he tallied another score later on in the period. Smith has been on fire lately, with four goals and two assists in his last three games. He now leads the Bruins in scoring nearly halfway into the season.
When asked about Smith, Brad Marchand said, “he’s a very talented player and you see that in a lot of the plays that he makes. You know he’s not a huge guy but he goes into the dirty areas, he gets in on the forecheck, and gets in front of the net and it’s paying off for him right now.” Marchand had himself a game as well. He had some great scoring opportunities throughout the game and he finally broke through with around three minutes to go, as he netted a goal on a shorthanded breakaway to drive the score up to 5-0.
The Bruins played a dominant final half hour after a very sluggish start, and will be rolling into their road date with Ottawa tonight with momentum. However, Dennis Seidenberg will not be making the trip with an apparent knee injury that he sustained in the third period after he fell awkwardly. Coach Claude Julien would only divulge that Seidenberg suffered a lower body injury.