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Briere's hat trick leads Sabres past Bruins

Jan 31, 2007 - 4:29 AM BUFFALO, New York (Ticker) -- Daniel Briere helped continue the Boston Bruins' recent struggles.

Briere scored his second career hat trick to lead the Buffalo Sabres to a 7-1 drubbing over the Bruins, who have lost four straight games.

Thomas Vanek opened the scoring during a 5-on-3 power play when he redirected a shot from the high slot over the right shoulder of goaltender Hannu Toivonen.

The Sabres doubled their lead on a power-play goal by Chris Drury, who deflected Nathan Paetsch's shot through Toivonen's pads 8:33 into the first period.

"We were struggling with the one-goal lead," Briere said. "Tonight we made sure we didn't stop with the one-goal lead, we just kept scoring goals. I think a lot of the times for the most part this season, teams playing back-to-back, it's us. We knew they played late last night, got in late. We wanted to get at them right from the beginning. We wanted to come out strong."

Briere had bookend tallies in Buffalo's four-goal second period. His first came on a breakaway down the center of the ice as he lifted the puck over the left pad of Toivonen. His second goal of the session was a wrister past the glove side of Toivonen and just inside the right post with 2:36 to play to increase the lead to 6-1.

"On the second one I still don't know how that went in," Briere said. "When you're on a good streak you're getting those bounces. After the second one, I just threw everything at the net. It's been crazy, the last 10 days for me. It's been fun."

Tim Thomas replaced Toivonen to start the third period, and Briere completed the hat trick on another breakaway, lifting the puck past the glove side of Thomas.

"It wasn't too much fun," Toivonen said. "It doesn't matter good or bad goals. Six against in two periods is not good enough."

Maxim Afinogenov has three assists and goaltender Martin Biron made 25 saves for the Sabres, who were 2-for-5 on the power play.

"Coming off two disappointing games in the third period, we talked about it this morning," Buffalo coach Lindy Ruff said. "We needed a complete effort. We did the little things a lot better in the game, which I thought made the difference."

Glen Murray scored a power-play goal for Boston, which was 1-for-6 with the extra attacker.

The Bruins have been outscored, 19-3, during their losing streak.

"Any loss is frustrating, any time you lose a game it's tough to swallow, especially now when you lose a number of games in a row," defenseman Zdeno Chara said. "It's tough because you're losing your ground and a lot of teams are gaining on you. We have to find a way, somehow some way, we have to find a way and go from there."

Briere's only other hat trick came during a 4-1 victory over the Tampa Bay Lightning on December 5. It had taken him 429 games to reach the milestone.