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BRUINS 3, THRASHERS 3 [ Game stats ]
Effort is uneven, but not the result
It's hard to be enthusiastic over that. It's even more difficult to be upbeat about the fact that this team has won three games since Thanksgiving. In the 23 games since then, Boston is 3-12-8.
Reason for optimism? Hardly. Yegads is more like it.
It's difficult to fathom how the team can play god-awful in first two periods and then play so inspired in the second half of the third period and overtime.
''We played for 10 minutes - that's all we played is 10 minutes,'' said coach Pat Burns. ''To come back and be able to change the game in 10 minutes tells me we can do it. Now we have to find a way to do it for at least 60 minutes. When fans come to watch, they pay to watch 60, not 10.''
What they watched at the beginning was gruesome, and it wasn't just the Bruins' play. Ray Bourque was struck in the face by a Ray Ferraro slapshot at 16:34 of the first period and lost three teeth and needed 10 stitches. Bourque went to the dressing room under his own power but didn't return.
Andrew Brunette's goal at 4:17 of the second on the power play gave Atlanta a 1-0 lead. Shean Donovan made it 2-0 at 11:22, and when defenseman Chris Tamer boosted the lead to 3-0 at 11:35 of the third, the Bruins looked cooked.
But they weren't. It was then they decided to play hockey. Kyle McLaren (on the power play) and Joe Thornton (who also had two assists) scored 13 seconds apart, at 13:03 and 13:16, to pull the Bruins within 3-2. Dave Andreychuk capped the comeback with his 18th goal with 30 seconds left in regulation.
It's a point, and the Bruins are desperate for points. However, if they'd played desperately from the outset, they never would've been in the mess they were in.
''They played [Sunday], they're an expansion team, and we're down, 3-0, with less than 10 minutes to go in the game,'' said goalie Byron Dafoe, who had 26 saves. ''I'm speechless. We came back and scored three, that's great, but there are no happy faces in here.
''It's an important tie in the fact that we need these points right now. If there's anything to take out of this game, it's that we got one point. You just can't be happy with the effort. Ties aren't bad if you throw a couple of wins in between them, but when you're throwing losses in between them, it's frustrating because it's a winless streak.''
When asked if there was enough of a feeling of desperation in the dressing room, the goalie shrugged.
''I hope so,'' he said. ''You have to question it once in a while, though. Where was the effort in the second period? It sure was there the last 10 minutes of the game, but come on, Atlanta Thrashers.
''It's just not acceptable. We've put ourselves into this situation where we're fighting for our lives right now. Every point is so important so we have to play desperate hockey right with the drop of the puck. Our effort just has to be stronger.
''We're fighting for our lives for a playoff spot and the effort isn't there. It's very frustrating. I don't care if we'd have come back and won the hockey game. We played for seven minutes. And we dominated. To show that we can play that way, where was that the first half of the hockey game?''
Good question.
There are 36 games remaining. Boston certainly remains in the hunt for a postseason berth, but unless wins start coming, unless the club starts playing with a horrible fear of what will happen if it doesn't win, we could be in for a long run of more ties, half-game efforts, and an early offseason that will bring its own kind of upheaval.
''We have to play desperate all the time,'' said Burns. ''We have to play desperate from now until the end of the year. Every single game.''
This story ran on page D01 of the Boston Globe on 1/18/2000.
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orgive me if I can't get too jazzed up over the Bruins rallying from a three-goal deficit in the third period to tie the expansion Atlanta Thrashers, 3-3, at the FleetCenter yesterday. The Bruins now have a league-leading 13 ties (including three in a row), only one fewer than the number of victories they've managed through 46 contests.