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Bruins crash party as Canadiens' Roy waves fond farewell
Blake Wheeler scored the only goal in a shootout to lift the Boston Bruins to a 3-2 win over the Montreal Canadiens on Saturday, spoiling a night of celebration as Hall of Fame netminder Patrick Roy had his number retired.
- Reuters
- Published: 00:04 November 24, 2008
Montreal: Blake Wheeler scored the only goal in a shootout to lift the Boston Bruins to a 3-2 win over the Montreal Canadiens on Saturday, spoiling a night of celebration as Hall of Fame netminder Patrick Roy had his number retired.
Following a scoreless opening period, Andrei Kostitsyn put Montreal on the scoreboard early in the second before Boston hit back with tallies from Milan Lucic and Matt Hunwick.
With just over three minutes remaining in regulation time, Tom Kostopoulos deflected the puck over the shoulder of Boston netminder Tim Thomas to force overtime but the Canadiens could not complete the rally.
Thomas, who entered the contest with the NHL's lowest goals against average, denied all three Montreal shooters while Wheeler made the first attempt count, twisting around Carey Price.
The capacity crowd at the Bell Centre came to honour Roy, who had his number 33 raised to the rafters in a pre-game ceremony.
Canadiens coach Guy Carbonneau agreed the pre-game ceremony placed a bit more importance on trying to come away with a victory.
"But not just because of the ceremony."
"We're at home, we're against a team that is playing really well and a team that is in our division," he added.
"We did some good things, but I would like to see our team go to the net a bit more.
"Right now when you are struggling offensively you try to keep it simple.
"I think it's just a question of time.
"We have too much talent to just keep scoring one goal, two goals a game."
The victory was the 12th in 14 games for Boston, moving them into first place in the Eastern Conference.
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