Bradshaw

Ka-THUMP! That's the sound of the Montreal Canadiens expectations being flattened anf their thoughts of another easy ride in Boston last night. The Bruins finally dominated the Habs in a game where the chips were down.

With this win, Boston pulls even further ahead of Montreal and the Buffalo Sabres into sole possession of 1st place in the Northeast Division. Boston now trails only the New York Rangers by 3 points for the Eastern Conference lead, and Boston has 3 games in hand on the Rangers. Boston will be facing the Rangers Saturday in New York in their next game.

In last night's game, the Bruins jumped out to a 3-0 lead in the 1st period on goals by Shawn Thornton (2:31), Stephane Yelle (17:00) and Marco Sturm (19:53) with a power play goal. Sturm popped in another power play goal (3:44) in the second before Saku Koivu (13:34) got the Canadiens on the board. The Bruins put them away with two more goals in the third, Milan Lucic (4:42) and Yelle (8:44) with his second goal of the game.

The win finally snapped a 12-game losing streak the Bruins had against Montreal. The Bruins fourth line of Chuck Kobasew, Stephane Yelle and Shawn Thornton combined for a season-high seven points. It's great to see all the lines contributing. Boston's goaltending tandem of Manny Fernandez and Tim Thomas has been just about the hottest in the NHL recently (well excluding the Canucks' Roberto Luongo) allowing only a stingy nine goals total in their last eight games.