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Thomas blanks Leafs as Bruins continue surge

Feb 21, 2007 - 5:25 AM TORONTO (Ticker) -- Tim Thomas and the Boston Bruins continue to make themselves at home on a crucial road trip.

Thomas made 43 saves for his third shutout of the season and the Bruins won their third straight road game with a 3-0 victory over the Toronto Maple Leafs.

Boston is now 3-1-0 on its season-high six-game road trip and moved a bit closer to the eighth spot in the Eastern conference playoff race.

Thomas posted his fourth career shutout against a team that victimized him for eight goals in a 10-2 rout on January 4.

"We got up 1-0 and that was a huge key. I came into the game wanting to win to kind of redeem myself and the team's sake from last game's shellacking that they gave us," Thomas said. "As the game went on, I did think at one point in my mind that I didn't want to give them anything - they've already gotten enough (goals) out of me this year."

Stanislav Chistov scored in the first period and P.J. Axelsson and Jason York added second-period tallies for Boston, which has won five of six and has 62 points. York's goal was his first of the season and first since January 8, 2004.

"The old offensive feeling's coming back, one goal," York said. "I'm just really happy with the way the guys played tonight. We really needed this win so we had to stay focused the whole 60 minutes and I think we did a really good job of it."

Defending Stanley Cup champion Carolina currently sits in the eight spot in the Eastern Conference with 67 points. Toronto fell out of a tie for eighth with the loss and has 66 points.

"There was not enough urgency in our game," Toronto captain Mats Sundin said. "Even though we created a lot of chances we just didn't have that killer instinct. We've been doing that really well I think and we've got to get back to that."

Boston came into the game off a 6-3 victory over Philadelphia on Monday in which they managed a season-low 18 shots. The Bruins defeated the Maple Leafs despite being outshot, 43-22.

The Bruins made the most of the chances they had and former Boston goaltender Andrew Raycroft was pulled in favor of Jean-Sebastien Aubin after two periods. He allowed three goals on 13 shots.

"It's a frustrating loss, but at the same time we've been playing pretty good hockey and we're not going to let this deflate us," Raycroft said. "It just seemed like we couldn't get anything off the rush. We couldn't get our feet moving. They did a very good job of keeping us to the outside."