he Bruins tried not to act like a beaten team following last night's game, despite surrendering a dramatic goal in overtime to fall to Detroit, 2-1, at the FleetCenter.
''It was an out-of-conference game and both teams were fighting for a point,'' goalie Byron Dafoe said. ''We played very well. It's disappointing to lose at any cost. But anybody who saw it knows we definitely should have won the game. We out-chanced them, but we just couldn't finish.''
In fact, the deciding goal resulted as much from a Bruin error as from a skillful pass by Steve Yzerman to lethal finisher Mathieu Dandenault.
''Yzerman made a heck of a play,'' said Dafoe, beaten at 1:30 of the four-on-four extra period to end it. ''And Dandenault made a heck of a play jumping into the play.
''It was a missed assignment, but that happens. They are very aggressive four on four, and with the talent they have, you've got to expect something like that could happen. And they don't miss too many chances like that. They are a very skilled team.''
There was no finger-pointing among the Boston players, and coach Mike Keenan tried to be diplomatic in his assessment. ''We gave up a goal they didn't have to work for,'' he said. ''It's disappointing. I'm not going to pinpoint the players, but they didn't get the job done. You can make your assumptions. It was a very simple play, and there should have been better coverage.''
On the deciding goal, Dandenault stepped around Joe Thornton at the blue line and simply waited for Yzerman's pass. Defenseman Jarno Kultanen made an attempt to recover, but was too late. Dandenault lifted his shot over Dafoe, then was mobbed along the boards by nearly the entire Red Wing team.
''It's always disappointing to lose, but you have to shrug it off,'' Bruins wing Bill Guerin said. ''It was a little breakdown. But it was also a heck of a pass and a great shot. Sometimes teams are allowed to make good plays, and they made one.
''Sometimes you catch a bad break. Some nights you work hard and don't get the breaks, and some nights you don't play well and catch some breaks. But this is not going to ruin our season.''
To get to overtime, the Bruins had to survive a first period in which they were badly outmaneuvered in nearly all phases. Brendan Shanahan gave Detroit the lead at 12:30 with a shorthanded goal off a pass by Martin LaPointe, who made an exceptional move along the boards.
Boston evened the score when Sergei Samsonov found the net at 3:57 of the second period.
From there, both teams had several chances with players isolated in front of the goal.
The Bruins' Andrei Kovalenko went in alone but could only kick the puck past Manny Legace, the goal disallowed 19 seconds into the second period. Guerin, Jonathan Girard, and Ken Belanger had point-blank shots stopped, and Dixon Ward hit the post with the net open late in regulation time.
Dafoe halted Sergei Fedorov three minutes into the second period, stopped Yzerman after a length-of-the-ice foray early in the third period, and covered another Yzerman shot in the final minutes of regulation.
The Red Wings kept up the attack in overtime, as Shanahan's wrist shot was deflected by Dafoe only seconds before the winning goal.
''When it's four on four, you've got to pick up somebody,'' defenseman Kyle McLaren said. ''They got loose in front of the net, it was a nice pass, and they are not going to miss that too often. We started off a little slow, but we had a great second period and a good third period. We didn't give them much, but on the ones we did give them, they scored.''
