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Thomas' third career shutout lifts Bruins

Feb 14, 2007 - 6:30 AM BOSTON (Ticker) -- Tim Thomas and the Boston Bruins kept the Edmonton Oilers seeking answers.

Thomas recorded his third career shutout as the Bruins extended their home mastery over the Oilers to nearly 11 years with a 3-0 victory.

Brandon Bochenski posted his second career three-point game and Marco Sturm tallied twice for Boston, which has not lost here to Edmonton since November 7, 1996.

"I don't really pride myself on throwing zeroes up," Thomas said. "I'm not going for the shutout, I'm going for the win. The way they were pressuring tonight, the key was not to let them get started because if they get some momentum going, who knows what can happen. Everybody pulled together to get us the win."

Thomas was solid in goal, but he was helped by the 26th-ranked power play of Edmonton, which was blanked on seven tries and failed to get a shot in four of those opportunities.

"We had some successful ones but we had some real poor power plays where we had trouble making the first pass and supporting the first pass down ice," Edmonton coach Craig MacTavish said.

"The PK was great tonight," Sturm said. "I think it was not the prettiest game tonight but we stuck together and that was big and Timmy was great in net and kept us in the game. But it is definitely too many penalties that we took and we have to cut down on them."

Thomas, who blanked Vancouver on December 21, stopped 32 shots while improving to 14-9 at home. Boston won for the fourth time in five games.

The Bruins gave Thomas all the support he needed with a pair of power-play goals in the first period. Bochenski, who was acquired from Chicago on February 3, scored with 4:47 left in the period and Sturm followed 62 seconds later with his 16th goal of the season.

"It feels good to win, especially when coming to a new team," Bochenski said. "We got a two-man advantage, and then a 5-on-4 and that was enough to win the game. We won the game in the first five minutes".

Patrice Bergeron, who left the contest in the second period with a lower body injury, assisted on both.

"Our power play has been one of our strengths all year long," Boston coach Dave Lewis said. "Tonight along with our penalty killing was the difference in the hockey game. Usually your best penalty killer is your goaltender and Timmy was on his game and guys were blocking shots."

The Oilers, who began the night second on the penalty kill, allowed two power-play tallies in five attempts.

Sturm completed his second multi-goal game of the season and third career with an empty-net tally with 2:12 left in the game.

"I'm loose and that's how I play the best hockey," Sturm said. "I came here last year and I had nothing to lose and that's how I played the best hockey. I definitely have the touch now and hopefully it will continue."

Dwayne Roloson stopped 20 shots for Edmonton, which opened a season-long seven-game road trip in ninth place in the Western Conference playoff race.

Bochenski scored his sixth goal after he took a tough-angle shot to the right of Roloson. The rebound bounced in the air and Bochenski poked it across the crease where it hit defenseman Steve Staios' skate and got past Roloson.

On the second goal, Bergeron was cutting toward the net, took a pass from Bochenski and fired a shot at Roloson. The puck deflected to the left toward Sturm, who collected the rebound and beat Roloson over his shoulder to the top right corner.

"I knew (Bergeron) wanted to give it to me the first time but the guy was coming on me," Sturm said. "But he did not see the puck laying there and I went around him and shot it."

"They got the first two in the first period and you could say they were bad breaks or not, but they are still goals and we could not capitalize on the power play," Oilers center Shawn Horcoff said. "I thought the energy was there, it was just a matter of not capitalizing when we needed to."