• Preview
• Recap
• Bleachers

Savard, Thomas lift Bruins past Islanders

Jan 25, 2008 - 4:19 AM By Mike Petraglia PA SportsTicker Contributing Writer

BOSTON (Ticker) - Marc Savard, Tim Thomas and Zdeno Chara showed the New York Islanders why they are headed to the All-Star Game this weekend in Atlanta.

Savard scored one goal and assisted on another while Tim Thomas stopped 28 shots as the Boston Bruins topped the Islanders, 4-1, on Thursday at TD Banknorth Garden in the final game for both teams before the weekend All-Star break.

Defenseman Chara added two assists as Boston bounced back from an embarrassing 8-2 loss Tuesday in Montreal. The Bruins have won all six games this season following a loss to the Canadiens.

"That was huge, especially coming after the embarrassment in Montreal the other night," Savard said. "We all felt embarrassed. We all wanted to come out and give it a 100 percent. Every single guy chipped in tonight and we can hang our heads high going into the break. We're in seventh place (in the Eastern Conference) no matter what, so we're excited about it."

Rick DiPietro saved 26-of-30 shots for the Islanders, who had their four-game road winning streak snapped.

The Bruins used their first power-play chance to kick-start their offense midway through the opening period.

Dennis Wideman's wrist shot from the top of the left circle beat DiPietro up top to his glove side with Marc-Andre Bergeron sitting out an interference penalty. The goal, at 9:28 of the first, was Wideman's seventh.

Savard assisted on the play after Radek Martinek appeared to save a sure goal, swatting the puck to the right corner boards as it drifted toward the goal line behind DiPietro. But Savard collected the puck and fired a pass across the zone to Wideman for his league-leading 44th assist, one more than Pittsburgh's Sidney Crosby.

"I don't know if we caught the Islanders off a little bit," Bruins coach Claude Julien said. "I thought we played a pretty good game. We haven't had the opportunity to play with a big lead that much this year."

Boston claimed a 2-0 lead less than a minute later when Milan Lucic raced up the left boards after gathering a pass from Chara. Lucic beat DiPietro with a wrister between the pads for his fifth goal at 10:20.

"Maybe guys were thinking about the break before the break even started," Islanders coach Ted Nolan said. "We weren't ready to go at the beginning of the game. They got a couple of quick goals on us and we didn't have enough to fight back."

The Islanders nearly cut the lead in half just over three minutes into the second period when Andy Sutton rang a wrist shot off the crossbar behind Thomas.

"I think it's real important," Thomas said. "Hopefully, it helps our confidence and being strong coming back from the break. We were making some real creative offensive plays tonight that weren't necessarily risky plays. The young guys really got us going and it rolled over to our other lines, as well."

Stationed on the end line to the left of the Islanders goal, Savard ripped a bad-angle goal past DiPietro midway through the second period, putting Boston ahead, 3-0.

"Chuck (Kobasew) cycled it down to me and I saw DiPietro look and I just put my head down and fired it on net," Savard said. "I didn't mean to go five-hole but I meant to obviously score and it went it. You have a 2-0 lead and they were sort of putting pressure on us so it was a big goal, I thought."

"I don't know if it was fluky but he's not going to the All-Star Game by accident," Nolan said. "He's a smart player."

DiPietro fell to 19-17-6 on the season.

"I just let in a bad third goal, just a bad goal," DiPietro said. "I don't think we played great. It's a bit of letdown. We didn't give ourselves the best chance to win and it's one we'll have to live with for a couple of days."

Phil Kessel blasted a shot through a screen that found its way past DiPietro for his 13th goal of the season on the power play at 17:20 of the second.

Thomas' hopes for his sixth career shutout and second this season went by the boards when Mike Sillinger beat him with a slap shot between the circles at 6:45 of the third.

"The second period, we had a couple of bad decisions," Nolan said. "With our team, we can't afford timely mistakes and tonight there were timely mistakes. They didn't dominate us, and when we had chances we didn't bear down. We didn't bear down in all facets of the game. It was a total team effort why we lost."