The Boston Bruins fell to the San Jose Sharks Saturday afternoon, shut out by Antti Niemi, 2-0. It was the Bruins' first loss in three games. The Sharks improved 7-0-1 in their last eight games, keeping their hot streak alive as they try to catch the Dallas Stars in the Pacific Division.
The game started without much action and no scoring. The first sign of life was when Shawn Thornton wanted to drop the gloves with Jamal Mayer, but the refs got in between before anything could break out.
A few minutes later, the Sharks scored the first goal of the game on the stick of Logan Couture. Couture, a serious candidate for rookie of the year, was involved with a lot of traffic in front of Tim Thomas and back handed it past the goaltender.
The Bruins did not score on their first power play chance minutes later, and in fact did not score in any of their four PP chances, getting shots on net in only one of their opportunities.
Adam McQuaid got into it with Ben Eager, and Eager had his stick still with him as he fought, resulting in a roughing minor and putting the Bruins back on the man advantage.
The Sharks appeared to have doubled their lead, but Eager was called for goaltender interference and the goal was waved off, along with another Bruins power play as Eager skated to the box.
That was it for the second, and after some good pressure late, the Bruins continued to outshoot the Sharks as their offense got stronger throughout as they tried to get it past Niemi. Unfortunately, they did not succeed resulting in a shutout loss to the hand of the red-hot Sharks.
The Bruins are off until Wednesday night, when they host the Montreal Canadiens at 7 p.m. EST.