Brad Marchand ends Boston Bruins two-game slide with 4-2 win over St. Louis Blues -NHL Update
Boston showed that it is a championship team as the Bruins along with Brad Marchand snapped their two-game slide and downed the St. Louis Blues, 4-2, on Wednesday night, February 22, 2012, at the Scottrade Center in Saint Louis, Missouri, United States.
Bruins have been looking for some offensive scoring power ever since losing Nathan Horton to concussion related issues and could be possibly in the process of acquiring a top-level forward in the upcoming days before the February 27 trade deadline.
Tim Thomas had to face nearly double the amount of shots that his counterpart in the St. Louis net, Brian Elliott, faced, 32-19, but still came out strong by only letting two go through as the competition fell short on four.
Looking how Thomas managed to play, no one could have possibly tensed with the amount of pressure he has been facing nowadays.
"There are two ways you can go in that situation," Thomas said. "You can either start trying harder or you can relax. Today, I decided to relax and that turned out to be the right move."
Despite their recent slump, Boston is still holding on to number two in the Eastern Conference and according to analysts, the Stanley Cup defending champions are just warming up for the playoffs.
Brad Marchand took the first goal of the night for his 20th of the 2011-2012 National Hockey League (NHL) regular season on a breakaway unassisted while Milan Lucic extended the lead nearly four minutes later.
St. Louis answered right back with two of their own as Chris Stewart and Ryan Reaves added back-to-back goals to level the game but Boston took the lead as Chris Kelly made the tie-breaker in the final 40 seconds.
Marchand secured the match in favour of the Bruins with his second of the night, midway through the third and final period of regulation.
Despite their second period rally, St. Louis failed to add a single score, which ultimately cost them the match.
"I thought we played really well that whole second period," St. Louis coach Ken Hitchcock said. "We just couldn't get that goal even when we had all the play in their zone."
Boston has the next against Buffalo Sabres on Friday while St. Louis is on a two game losing streak and have the next against Nashville Predators on Thursday.
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