Bruins keep sliding

It's another step back vs. Predators

[ Game summary ]

By Nancy Marrapese-Burrell, Globe Staff, 2/18/2003

ASHVILLE -- Tick, tick, tick, tick.

That's the sound of the Bruins' season slipping away. They went into this seven-game road trip knowing it would have a critical bearing on where they would finish in the Eastern Conference playoff race. If the first two months of the season made them look like championship contenders, the last couple of months have erased that notion. Now they look like they'll be lucky to make it to the postseason at all.

Last night, they took yet another step backward with an embarrassing 5-1 loss to the Nashville Predators. They have dropped three of four games on this trip and have lost four of five overall.

To say they were awful in their zone doesn't do it justice. They made mistake after mistake, prompting coach Robbie Ftorek to do something he never has done as Bruins coach -- pull the goaltender.

He yanked Jeff Hackett, whom the Bruins were banking on riding to a strong finish when they acquired him, in favor of Steve Shields at 8:28 of the second period, less than two minutes after he yielded his fourth goal. Hackett didn't remain on the bench, instead he headed down the runway, exchanged words with a fan, and then went to the dressing room.

On Jan. 23 of last year, Ftorek left then-Boston goalie Byron Dafoe in for eight goals in an 8-4 loss to the Rangers in New York. Dafoe reacted angrily to not being pulled, saying he was embarrassed, but Ftorek said his philosophy is to leave netminders in for the duration. He reinforced that thinking when he left John Grahame in for eight goals in an 8-4 loss to the Islanders in New York this Jan. 3.

''I think about it often but I don't do it very often,'' said Ftorek. ''We'd given up [24] shots. He got run right over and nobody did anything about it. He just wasn't getting very much support back there. I thought it was time to put Shields in there and see if we couldn't turn things around. We played a little bit better. I don't think it's because he went in. I think between periods the guys decided to play harder.''

After the move, the Predators did stop scoring for a while, but the Bruins had a tough time getting anything past Tomas Vokoun (40 saves).

It took Nashville just 2:52 of the first period to take the lead for good. Reid Simpson knocked Bruins defenseman Bryan Berard off the puck in the left corner of the Boston zone. He backhanded a pass to Greg Johnson in the left circle, and he one-timed it past Hackett to make it 1-0.

The middle period was a disaster for the Bruins, who surrendered three sloppy goals.

At 2:07, Andy Delmore made it a two-goal lead with his 17th of the season.

Not long after, the Bruins had a 4-on-3 power play, which gave them a chance to get back into the game, but they couldn't convert. They had another power play when Cale Hulse was called for high sticking, but that was nullified when Hackett inexplicably skated way out of the crease to freeze a puck and was whistled for delay of game at 4:50.

The game was effectively ended at 5:12 when left wing Mike Knuble tried to knock a puck out of midair and it went right on the stick of Nashville forward Rem Murray. He beat Hackett for an unassisted goal.

Less than two minutes later, Nashville added another one. With Hackett down and out after a save on Denis Arkhipov, Adam Hall took a centering pass and put it into an empty net, making it a runaway at 6:52.

The only goal of the night for Boston came 45 seconds into the third when Nick Boynton made it 4-1. But Murray tallied his second of the night at 13:47 to make it a four-goal bulge.

The Predators had a penalty shot at 18:33, when Hall was hauled down on a breakaway by P.J. Axelsson, but Shields stopped it.

''I don't know what to make out of all this,'' said Knuble. ''The bottom line is we're just giving up too many shots. You haven't seen that out of us all year.''

''We've got 24 games left and that's going to be our season,'' he said. ''We're going to be in and out [of the playoff race] day by day. If we lose on a night, we're going to lose ground, and we have to face that fact the rest of the season here.''

This story ran on page F1 of the Boston Globe on 2/18/2003.
© Copyright 2003 Globe Newspaper Company.