[ Game summary ]

By Nancy Marrapese-Burrell, Globe Staff, 1/22/2002

hey've been working on it in practice. They've tried switching personnel. They've talked about it during meetings and on-ice workouts. They've probably even had dreams about it at night.

Regardless, the Bruins' power play deserted them again yesterday. For the second game in a row, against the same opponent, they couldn't finish on the man advantage, and it cost them.

Yesterday, the Bruins were 0 for 6 against the St. Louis Blues and dropped their second overtime game in a row, this one by a 4-3 score at the FleetCenter. It goes into the record books, as well, as it was the franchise-best ninth win in a row for the Blues.

Saturday in St. Louis, the Bruins were 0 for 4 on the power play in a 2-1 loss. In each of the home-and-home contests, Blues winger Keith Tkachuk converted on the man advantage, giving his team a huge boost.

Yesterday, the Bruins were outplayed for at least the second half of the game and into overtime; they could have used some assistance from the power play, which is now just 1 for 30 in the last seven games.

Asked what was wrong, center Brian Rolston shook his head.

''That's a good question,'' he said. ''I don't have that answer. It's just a matter of going out there and working for shots, maybe simplifying it a little bit more. But, obviously, tonight it wasn't there.

''We've got to have it. Our penalty kill was fairly solid again, but when you get those power-play opportunities, they can be the difference between winning and losing games.''

The Bruins have lost seven games in overtime, the most in the NHL. The good part is they've earned 7 of a possible 14 points in those games, but coach Robbie Ftorek said they definitely could stand to improve in that area.

''We've got to work on that,'' said Ftorek. ''We've got to talk about it a little bit. In defense of the players, we played three forwards and one [defenseman]. That's a pretty darn good team to play that way against. But we were looking to get the win.

''Early in the year, we played three and one and we had pretty good success with it. We thought we'd go with it again tonight. Obviously, it didn't work out, even though we did have a couple of chances early on in the OT. We probably could've gone two and two and still gotten a point but not got a win, and we wanted to go for the win.''

Truthfully, the Bruins should have had the win. In regulation.

They had a two-goal lead after the first period but couldn't hang onto it. Left wing Sergei Samsonov potted a goal at 7:47 for his 14th of the season, and defenseman Sean O'Donnell, after taking a backhand pass from Bill Guerin out of the right corner, tallied his second of the year at 15:50, beating Brent Johnson from the right circle on a delayed penalty.

The Blues climbed back into it at 17:11 of the second period on a goal by Pavol Demitra, who was set up nicely by Tkachuk (two assists).

Tkachuk tied the game at 2:36 of the third when he took advantage of Rolston's slashing penalty and beat goaltender Byron Dafoe for his 26th of the year.

Enter P.J. Stock. The Bruins' version of the Rock-em-Sock-em robot went toe to toe with Reed Low at 5:46 and gave his team a needed spark.

Benoit Hogue, who replaced Jozef Stumpel between Guerin and Martin Lapointe, gave Boston the lead back at 7:03 with his first goal as a Bruin. But the next two belonged to St. Louis. Pesky forward Mike Keane sent the game into overtime when he connected with 3:40 left in regulation, and defenseman Bryce Salvador ended it at 2:48 of OT when he took a backhand pass from Tkachuk and blasted a shot over the glove of Dafoe from the left point.

''At times we did have momentum,'' said Ftorek, ''but I really think from around the eight-minute mark of the second period, it went the other way until Stocker went out and had that scrap, and then we had it again but we weren't able to maintain it. That's why they've won nine in a row.''

Ftorek said he's not overly worried about Stumpel. He just felt he needed to change his lines to get something going.

''Stumpel has been playing very well,'' said the coach. ''Tonight, I just didn't see the juice on that line so I thought I'd change it.''

As for the power play, Ftorek doesn't think it is a complete disaster, but it sure isn't helping.

''Some of the power plays went really, really well,'' he said. ''We got the puck out of the zone, we got it in and got some good scoring chances. Some of the power plays, we didn't get out of the zone very well and that's a norm. But when you do get as many power plays as we've had the last two [games], you'd like to get some goals off of it. It didn't happen.''

This story ran on page D1 of the Boston Globe on 1/22/2002.
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