Bruins can't find answers

Struggles continue with loss to Atlanta

[ Game summary ]

By Nancy Marrapese-Burrell, Globe Staff, 1/18/2003

TLANTA - They've tried video. They've tried meetings. Players only. Coaches only. Management with coaches. Management with players. They've tried talking about their problems. They've tried not talking about them. They've tried hard, long practices. They've tried calling up players from the minors. They've tried juggling lines. It seems the only thing the Bruins haven't tried is a major trade, and that seems likely to be next.

The Bruins dropped their third straight game last night, a 3-1 decision to the Atlanta Thrashers, and have lost 14 of their last 18 (3-14-1-0).

The only word to describe the first two periods, particularly the second, was bizarre. After a punishing practice here Thursday, the Bruins promised to come out with far more passion than they had been playing with. There's no question they did. A little more than three minutes in, Brian Rolston got the Bruins on the board with a power-play goal. It was Boston's first strike on the man advantage in nine games. Before last night, the Bruins were 0 for their last 21.

With Boston set up in the Atlanta zone, Jozef Stumpel had the puck along the left boards. He dished it to Rolston at the left point, who then relayed it to Sean O'Donnell at the right. O'Donnell fed it right back to Rolston, who teed up a slapper that beat goalie Pasi Nurminen through a screen at 3:11.

Later in the period, the Bruins' fortunes took a turn for the worse when captain Joe Thornton was ejected. Thornton, who had missed the last five games because of an infected elbow, was assessed a two-minute minor for roughing and a game misconduct when referees Mike Hasenfratz and Dan O'Halloran deemed he was the third man into an altercation.

It started with Glen Murray trading whacks with Thrashers defenseman Andy Sutton in front of the Atlanta net. Martin Lapointe, playing on his off wing, the left, on Thornton's line, got involved along with some Thrashers, but it was when Thornton went after Sutton that he was called for being the third man in. Supervisor of officials Denis Morel said he hadn't yet talked to the referees but surmised that the reason Thornton was singled out was because they had already deemed Lapointe involved in the fisticuffs.

Whatever the reason, Thornton was gone, and the rest of the Bruins were left to kill off an Atlanta power play.

They did, but the second period turned out to be a disaster for the Boston bench, and the team's penalty-killers, who were forced to work overtime.

Only 13 seconds into the period, the Bruins were assessed their first of three bench minors for too many men on the ice. In all, the Bruins were called for four bench minors in the period, the other a result of a second faceoff violation on the same draw.

If the Bruins played a good first period, all the momentum they had evaporated in the second.

''One of them was that the [defenseman] jumped [on the ice too soon] and the puck just came to the bench at the same time,'' said coach Robbie Ftorek. ''Another was that we had one guy in the penalty box and I told two guys that they were up. One guy jumped on, which is good, and the other guy just jumped on as well. He was supposed to be going for the guy in the box, so that cost us. The other one, I don't know. Three of them and a delay of game on the faceoff, it's crippling.

''It hurt us when we lost Joey. It hurt us more when we took the penalties. We just have to keep plugging and put some pucks in the net and give ourselves an opportunity to win. It's tough when you only get one goal or no goals. You don't win games that way.''

At 9:32, during their second too-many-men advantage, the Thrashers made the Bruins pay by tying the game. Defenseman Frantisek Kaberle pulled Atlanta even with his fourth goal of the season when he beat goalie Andrew Raycroft with a slapper from the top of the left circle.

A hooking call on P.J. Axelsson at 14:28 led to the Thrashers' second power-play goal. This time it was the supremely talented Ilya Kovalchuk who found the back of the net. Right wing Slava Kozlov threaded a pass to Kovalchuk, whose first bid was stopped, but he buried his second attempt at 15:11.

A bad bounce led to the Thrashers' third goal. At 11:36 of the third period, Bryan Berard tried to get the puck out of the right corner in the Bruins' zone. But the puck deflected off one Thrasher player, hit Raycroft in the arm, and bounced right to Kozlov, who was all alone in front of the net.

''Somehow it ended up right on the guy's tape,'' said Raycroft. ''That's why he's a goal scorer. He was just standing there. I don't know why he was. But he was all alone.''

When nothing is going right, everything goes wrong.

''We've got to find a way,'' said Lapointe, through clenched teeth, ''to win some games.''

This story ran on page F1 of the Boston Globe on 1/18/2003.
© Copyright 2003 Globe Newspaper Company.