Last night’s game between the Bruins and the Devils was a tale of two teams, one which is scolding hot and one which is withering at their biggest moments. The B’s are the latter, having lost 6 of 7 games after a 7 game win streak. New Jersey, on the other hand, has been on fire. After one of the worst starts in NHL history the Devils have magically found their way into the crowded eastern conference playoff picture. Before the game, coach Claude Julien said the hardest part of the B’s last 7 games is “Just that we haven’t played as well as we know we can. I think there’s a better team there in that dressing room than what has showed in the last little while. Again, we’ve just got to straighten that out as soon as we can here, and hopefully its going to start tonight” The game promised for a furious pace and great goaltending from the likes of Martin Brodeur and Tim Thomas.

The game started out furiously with a great chance from Marc Recchi 55 seconds in followed by hard checks along the boards. The next three minutes featured a number of Devils chances on juicy rebounds off the pads of Tim Thomas. Ilya Kovalchuk struck first for the Devils with a laser strike ten seconds into a Marc Recchi hooking penalty. With the score at 1-0, Shawn Thornton evened it up with 2:12 to go in the period with a tip in off a Dennis Seidenberg drive Tomas Kaberle, who also assisted on the goal, said “I passed to Seidenberg and he made a good shot and Thornton deflected it in front of the net, that’s what we need right now.” The period ended at 1-1 but it was dominated bythe Devils, who outshot the B’s 16-6.

The second period started out strongly for the B’s with a penalty on Mark Faine for hooking 23 seconds into the period, giving the B’s their second power play chance of the evening. Martin Brodeur was forced to make some spectacular saves to prevent some awesome B’s chances from going in, but the power play ended up being killed by the Devils after many scares.  The Devils easily stole most of the Bruins neutral zone pass attempts. Dennis Seidenberg made a solid drive towards Brodeur but it was deflected around six minutes into the period. Nine seconds into a Nick Palmieri tripping call, Zdeno Chara connected on a one timer past Brodeur, giving the B’s the 2-1 advantage with 11:43 remaining in the period. Chara was assisted by Tomas Kaberle, his second assist of the night. The Bruins went on their 4th power play of the period when David Steckel went to the box on an interference call with 6:06 remaining. The B’s had a multitude of chances during the man advantage but just couldn’t squeeze one past Brodeur and the Devils managed to get the kill. The B’s made up the shot deficit and with 2:20 to go the shots were even for the game at 22 a piece. The period ended without consequence, but the B’s managed to outshoot NJ 17-8.

The game reached a new level of intensity as the third period began. Neither team had a real scoring opportunity until Milan Lucic sent a beautiful David Krecji feed just wide of the net with 15:10 to go, and the rebound off the boards allowed for some promising shots from the B’s and some scrumming in front of Brodeur but none crossed the net. The next 5 minutes were mainly played in the neutral zone, with neither team willing to give up an inch of space, but the Devils seemed surprisingly conservative, not willing to try any 3 on 2s or fast breaks in their attacking zone. New Jersey went on the power play with 11:09 to go after a Gregory Campbell tripping call, and had a good chance at Thomas with 1:25 remaining in the power play. Johnny Boychuk had a spectacular shorthanded chance that Brodeur saved with 35 seconds to go in the power play, and a foolish offsides by the Devils allowed the B’s to reset for a face off. The Devils tugged at Bruins fans’ heartstrings with shot after shot that Thomas and company managed to barely block, and during a Devils change the B’s took the puck up ice. Milan Lucic scored on a wrister after multiple shots were fired at Brodeur with 3:36 remaining in the match, his 30th of the year. When asked about what reaching that milestone means to him, Lucic said “a lot, its a big milestone for me to hit…I never imagined I’d get to this milestone so quickly. It just goes to show how hard I’ve worked to get myself in this position and it’s great to get rewarded for it.” NJ managed to stay out of the net for the remainder of the match, even after pulling Brodeur. Marc Recchi landed an empty netter with 35 seconds remaining. The Bruins got the 4-1 win and a thunderous ovation from the Garden’s sellout crowd. This victory will bring some momentum to a sluggish B’s team, who have now lost 6 of their last 8 games and have what is sure to be a grudge match for all time against Montreal tomorrow night, the first game between the rivals since Max Pacioretty’s injury.