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Kessel, Krejci, Thomas buoy Bruins

Feb 20, 2008 - 4:09 AM RALEIGH, North Carolina (Ticker) -- Phil Kessel and David Krejci tallied and All-Star Tim Thomas made two stops in the shootout as the Boston Bruins defeated the Carolina Hurricanes, 3-2, on Tuesday.

All-Stars Zdeno Chara and Marc Savard recorded power-play goals in regulation and Thomas made 45 saves for Boston, which avoided a regular-season sweep by Carolina with Tuesday's victory.

"It wasn't the prettiest win," Chara said. "They had some pretty good chances."

Ray Whitney scored with 63 seconds remaining to end Thomas' bid for his second shutout of the season and sixth of his career, and Erik Cole tallied 20 seconds later to tie the game.

With Boston nursing a 2-0 lead, Whitney halved the deficit by accepting a feed from Andrew Ladd for his 24th of the season.

Cole leveled the contest moments later after taking a brilliant feed from All-Star Eric Staal and wristing it under the crossbar for his 14th tally of the campaign.

Both goals came with an extra Carolina attacker on the ice.

"The difference was their extra man," Thomas said. "They got some lucky bounces."

Boston defenseman Aaron Ward said it was unsettling how the game ended in regulation, but was glad with the final result.

"We have to know what happened there at the end," said Ward, who also played for the Hurricanes from 2001-06. "We have to realize it's a 60-minute game. For those two guys to step up in a shootout is big for us."

Boston coach Claude Julien echoed Ward's sentiments.

"For 59 minutes, I thought we played some pretty good hockey," Julien said. "We didn't do the job in the last minute. Tim had to make some big saves in each period. There were a lot of shots but they came from outside."

"We threw a lot of shots at him," Staal said. "I don't think maybe we got on the rebounds like we wanted to, just kind of bouncing over our stick. He did make some saves for them."

Cam Ward stopped 36 shots for Carolina, which has dropped its last two games.

"That one leaves a sour taste in your mouth," Ward said. "You work extremely hard to fight back and credit to the guys, they didn't give up. It's frustrating, as a goaltender, that it has to end that way in the shootout."

It was only Carolina's third shootout of the season, while Boston has been in seven.

"We haven't had many shootouts this year," Staal said. "We haven't been in that situation in a while."

Carolina's last shootout resulted in a 6-5 victory over Philadelphia on December 15.

Chara opened the scoring 4:50 into the first period after accepting a centering feed from Marco Sturm and tipping it past Ward for his 11th goal of the season. Savard also picked up an assist to give him an NHL-best 52 this season.

Savard doubled the Bruins advantage after blasting a one-timer from the right circle with 5:32 remaining in the second period.

Carolina, which has a tenuous two-point lead in the Southeast Division over Washington and Atlanta, plays its next five games at home.