BOSTON — About the only bad news for the Boston Bruins in their 8-0 rout on Monday night is that they don’t play the Toronto Maple Leafs again.
The Bruins completed a six-game sweep of the season series behind two goals from Benoit Pouliot, a goal and three assists from Brian Rolston and the fifth shutout of the season for Tim Thomas. Their superiority was so complete that after two periods they had as many goals — seven– as the Maple Leafs had shots.
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And Boston outscored Toronto 36-10 this season.
“Sometimes you have a bit of luck on your side and you match up well against a team,” Bruins forward Chris Kelly said. “By no means was the score indicative of the kind of games they were.”
It was on Monday.
Boston led 4-0 just 13 minutes into the game and Thomas had to make only 13 saves, the fewest shots allowed by the Bruins since they gave up 13 to Pittsburgh on April 13, 2002. He got his second shutout of the Maple Leafs this season. He also was in net for a 7-0 rout at Toronto on Nov. 5. The only one of the six games that the Bruins won by fewer than three goals was a 5-4 victory on March 6 in Toronto.
“I have never really seen anything like that (domination),” Maple Leafs goalie James Reimer said.
The Maple Leafs fell into a huge hole early, dropping behind 4-0 when Brad Marchand scored his 24th goal of the season just 12:42 into the game in a power play. That’s when Reimer, who had stopped only five of nine shots, was replaced by Jonas Gustavsson.
He held Boston scoreless through the rest of the first period then gave up three goals in the second to Pouliot, his 12th of the season, Zdeno Chara and Rolston and one in the third to Tyler Seguin. Kelly, Gregory Campbell and Pouliot had scored Boston’s first three goals. The third line of Kelly, Pouliot and Rolston accounted for four goals.
“We deserved a game like that because we went through a stretch there (when) it seemed everything went wrong,” Rolston said. “We have a lot of depth.”
SABRES 7, LIGHTNING 3: Marcus Foligno and Jason Pominville each scored twice as Buffalo won at Tampa, Fla.
RANGERS 4, DEVILS 2: Brandon Dubinsky scored shortly after a fight-filled opening faceoff, and New York won at home to become the first Eastern Conference team to earn a playoff spot.
Three fights broke out at the outset and that seemed to jump-start the Rangers, who had lost two straight and 5 of 7.
WILD 2, CANUCKS 0: Erik Christensen scored a power-play goal in the second period and Kyle Brodziak’s added an empty-netter as Minnesota won at home.
CAPITALS 5, RED WINGS 3: Alexander Ovechkin scored twice as Washington handed host Detroit its fifth straight loss.
NOTES
Forward Shawn Thornton agreed to a two-year contract extension through 2013-14 with the Bruins.
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