All You Need Is Looch - Bruins Beat Thrashers

The Bruins would celebrate the return of Milan Lucic (out several games with a broken finger) with a win over the Thrashers, last night in Atlanta.

And while "Looch" didn't figure prominently on the game sheet, his arrival, and the immanent return of Marc Savard, offer some promise that help is on the way for a Bruins team that has struggled to maintain its .500-or-better standing.

However, this is a Bruins club that needs some help: their powerplay is ranked last in the league, and they've developed a disturbing habit of gaining a lead in the final minutes of the 3rd period, only to surrender it again in the final moments of the game. It happened against Pittsburgh (with 0.3 seconds on the clock) and it happened last night against Atlanta, who called a timeout and then scored with the extra attacker with 47 seconds left.

The Bruins' eventual win in the shootout is great - great! - but should not cover this troubling trend of coughing up sure wins in the final moments.

Last season, the B's had a far better record at this point in the season, but they spent half the year only playing hard in the 2nd and 3rd periods, often going into the first intermission down a couple of goals. They created pressure on themselves and then had to fight back to win games. For a while this worked great, but as other teams found their footing around Christmas, the Bruins began losing games by the margins they'd surrendered in the 1st period. I fear this year's end-of-game breakdowns may have a similar, negative, effect on the Bruins' season.

If the B's are able to find a way to close out these games when they've gained late-leads, they'll be in far stronger shape down the line (and into the playoffs) when close games matter most.

This trend of letting teams back into games can have disastrous results (just ask the Devils, after their playoff series against the Hurricanes last year), and needs to be high on the list of issues to address for the Bruins.

Hopefully, this important lesson was learned last night, when a loss was narrowly averted by Patrice Bergeron's unbelievable shootout move, and gets carried by the Bruins into tonight's game against the Sabres.

Because "playing a 60-minute-game" may be a hockey cliche, but it is a lesser cliche than another Bruins team that is really good, but yet still not good enough.