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Brodeur strong in net as Devils defeat Bruins

Dec 14, 2007 - 4:58 AM BOSTON (Ticker) -- Martin Brodeur continues to make life between the pipes look easy.

Brodeur posted his 10th win in 11 games and captain Jamie Langenbrunner scored twice as the New Jersey Devils posted a 3-1 victory over the Boston Bruins on Thursday.

Brian Gionta also scored for New Jersey, which ended a two-game skid that followed nine consecutive wins.

"You have to get back to doing things right, and the longer you let things go on like the past two, three, four games, the harder it is to get out of it," Devils coach Brent Sutter said. "You have to nail it right off the bat, and that's what we have been working on and stressing in the last 48 hours, where we need to get back to our game and the things we do well. Tonight, we did that."

Brodeur is a main reason the Devils have won 10 of 12 as the three-time Vezina Trophy winner has gone 10-0-1 in that span.

In this contest, the 15-year veteran turned aside eight shots in the first period and seven in the second before surrendering a power-play goal 91 seconds into the third, when Marc Savard banged in a rebound as the netminder was sitting on the ice.

"A shot from the point. (Boston captain Zdeno) Chara hit it really hard and I couldn't control it," Brodeur said. "It hit my pants, I think, or my glove, and guys are battling and the puck squirted out to Savard. He made a good shot and I turned around. I had my pad low and he still made the shot."

It was one of the few trying moments for Brodeur as his teammates gave him a 2-0 lead with which to work.

"I think today, for 60 minutes, all three periods, we were paying attention," Brodeur said. "We were not undisciplined taking penalties, but within our system. We kept it really simple, and it paid off."

Gionta put the Devils in front when he grabbed the puck in his own zone, raced down the ice and wristed a shot between the pads of netminder Alex Auld with 9:03 left in the middle session.

"I had him beat to the outside," Gionta said. "I knew I had him between the blue line and the red line. I knew I had a good bead on him, and I saw the other D coming over. So at that point, I tried to get to the center as much as possible and get a shot off."

During a two-man advantage less than four minutes later, Langenbrunner received a quick pass from Zach Parise before burying a shot from the right faceoff circle to make it 2-0 with 5:26 left in the period. It was the Devils' fifth 5-on-3 goal of the season.

Langenbrunner completed his second two-goal effort of the season when he scored an empty-netter with 15 seconds remaining.

"Great play by (Mike) Mottau to buy some time and bring it across for me," Langenbrunner said. "I saw the wide side of the net and tried to hit it, and finally hit the net."

Brodeur stopped four more shots in the third to finish with 19 saves.

Auld made 25 saves for the Bruins, who have dropped eight of their last 10 meetings with the Devils. The goalie suffered his first loss in four games with Boston after being acquired from Phoenix on December 6.

"Tonight, the way they scored, those were mental mistakes," said Boston coach Claude Julien, whose team posted a win in Atlanta on Wednesday. "We did what we could to give these guys some rest and stayed away from the ice this morning, but these guys are not robots. We just didn't seem to have enough tonight to make a difference."