They play full 60 minutes to take rematch with Penguins

[ Game summary ]

By Nancy Marrapese-Burrell, Globe Staff, 12/13/2001

ITTSBURGH - If there's been one complaint this season about the Bruins' defense, which has been far better than in the two prior years, it's the lack of offensive production.

However, last night it was a defenseman who came through for Boston as Sean O'Donnell scored the eventual winner at 16:53 of the second period, lifting the Bruins to a 4-2 victory over the Penguins at the Igloo.

It was the first goal in 50 games over a span of 10 months for O'Donnell, who last found the back of the net when he was with the Minnesota Wild Feb. 24, 2001.

It marked the third goal of the season for the Boston blue liners (excluding the two against Buffalo by Jamie Rivers, who was playing forward in that contest). Three Bruins defensemen had points in the game.

''I think it's better in the fact that we don't really care [about points],'' said defenseman Hal Gill, who along with Don Sweeney had an assist. ''We're looking for plusses and if we can get it up to the forwards and they can score, that's what we want. More importantly, we're trying to stay away from the minuses.''

Coach Robbie Ftorek, whose club ended Pittsburgh's unbeaten streak at five games, said it didn't matter that Boston was playing the Penguins for the second time in a week, but it didn't hurt to still have a little sting of that disappointing loss at home last Thursday.

''It was a good win, I know that,'' said Ftorek. ''We battled and I think we took advantage of a team that was tired and that's an important thing.''

Goaltender John Grahame, who made his first start in eight games, made 32 stops to improve his record to 2-1-2.

The Bruins' strategy going into the rematch was to start strong and keep it through 60 minutes. Through two periods, they accomplished their objective, taking a 3-1 lead into the final 20 minutes.

Boston took the lead early on a bang-bang play. At 5:07 of the first, Joe Thornton beat Pittsburgh's Kris Beech on a faceoff in the right circle in the Penguins' zone, winning the draw to Glen Murray, who was on the right side of the slot. Murray's shot beat Johan Hedberg for a 1-0 lead.

Former Bruin Robert Lang helped pull the Penguins even at 11:43 when he set up and pretty much scored a goal that was credited to Alexei Kovalev. Lang skated the puck through the right circle and with Bruins defenseman Jarno Kultanen chasing him, cut through the slot. Lang, who also had P.J. Axelsson on his tail, tried a backhander at the left post that went wide. But Lang got the puck back and threw another backhander at the net. It hit Grahame and trickled through. With Grahame on his hands and knees, the puck was slowly heading toward the goal line and likely would have crossed, but Kovalev didn't want to take any chances. He zoomed in and tapped it into the net to make it 1-1.

The Bruins regained the lead at 10:50 of the second on the first of two goals by Bill Guerin. Sweeney, at the left point, relayed the puck to the net. It pinballed off one player and with Brian Rolston (game-high 10 shots) fighting for position with Penguins defenseman Brad Ference, the puck squirted to Guerin and he beat Hedberg under the left arm to make it 2-1.

''He got a piece of it and I was surprised to see it trickle in,'' said Guerin.

Then came the O'Donnell goal. In the left circle, Jozef Stumpel faked a slapper and dished the puck across the slot to O'Donnell in the right circle. O'Donnell one-timed it past Hedberg to make it 3-1.

''I saw Odie on the other side,'' said Stumpel. ''I was deciding on a shot depending on what [the defenseman] was doing with his stick. He brought it back so I saw a lane open so I just passed it to him. He made a pretty good shot.''

Early in the third, the Penguins pulled to within 3-2 at 1:07 on Kovalev's second goal of the night. But Guerin closed out the scoring with an empty-net goal with 46.2 seconds left.

Grahame said it felt great to get the win.

''You want to be able to help whenever you get in there,'' he said. ''We're in a pretty tight race here so every point counts. These are an important 2 points for us.''

This story ran on page C1 of the Boston Globe on 12/13/2001.
© Copyright 2001 Globe Newspaper Company.