Thomas Leads Bruins To 4th Straight Win In Home Opener

Added on Oct 22, 2010 by J Merrill in

NHL

The Boston Bruins officially opened the TD Garden for the 2010 season. Despite what you think of Aerosmith’s Steven Tyler’s rendition of the national anthem, the Bruins showed no signs of letting up on their early success this year. There were some questions about goalie Tim Thomas going into the season, and Thomas is doing a fantastic job of easing everyones concerns.

After getting his 4st straight win, Thomas is getting confident, but knows he is a part of a team. He also has heard the rumors of the Bruins trying to trade him, but right now he has a job to do and realizes he is one of two goalies for the Bruins. Thomas commented “I’m hoping this isn’t just a hot streak; this is me now,I feel good now. At times last year I felt like I was a one-legged goalie.” He continued “I understand that me and Tuukka are a tandem, There’s room enough for both of us to play. I’m not putting myself in the coach’s shoes; I’m just playing as well as I can when I’m told to play.”

He is responding well. He faced 39 shots from the Capitals this pass Thursday night, and only one got through in the 4-1 win. The only goal the Bruins allowed was a mistake by Thomas. He came out of the crease to play a slow moving puck, he attempted to pass, and it was intercepted by Chimera, who easily beat the out-of-position goalie to make it 3-1. He was trying to pass to Blake Wheeler on a possible break-away. “Wheels deserves a goal,” Thomas said. “I wanted to get him the puck. I just got greedy. I should have played the puck out and kept it simple.”

When you have the stat sheet Thomas has, the team isn’t quick to ridicule you when you make a mistake you own up too. With his fourth straight win numbers included, he has a .75 goals against average, and a save percentage of .978. If he keeps these numbers up he will be a shoe in when it comes time for the all-star game.

Capitals coach Bruce Boudreau noticed Thomas’ performance as well saying “It’s pretty tough to come back against this team when their goalie is playing like that with a three-nothing lead, We had lots of chances to score. We just didn’t.”

Boston Bruins captain took a few moments to tell the press he had a message for the fans. “They were loud and they were cheering us on,” said Zdeno Chara. “You know we could tell that they created a lot of great moments for us. For sure, we want to give it to them back, you know. The best way to give them something back is winning the game. “It just shows that we have such passionate fans and…such good supporters and we really appreciate that, Thanks to the fans. Thanks for coming. It was an awesome opening night and I am sure they enjoyed the hockey game.”

Chara doesn’t want to let up now, and he wants to ride this momentum out as well. He said “We can’t get satisfied. We have to be hungry and look ahead of us, not looking at the standings or the record.” He said the Bruins were focused on the Capitals “”We have to just…play to win and work extremely hard and eventually it is going to all settle, But right now it’s one game. We really took it as a challenge,” said Chara. “We were really focusing on the first game in Washington and that’s what we did. We got the first win out of those two games. And, obviously, playing them in the home opener you don’t want to disappoint everybody. You want to put up a good performance and that’s what we did. He concluded “We stayed patient, we got goals, and then you saw the results.”