There wasn’t much to tonight’s story line when the 12th place Panthers came to town. In fact the biggest story in the morning skate was that Milan Lucic was back on the ice and eying a return against the Islanders next week.
Quickly things changed as the Panthers vs Bruins turned into a Thomas vs Tomas as the two goaltenders were stopping everything thrown at them. More often than not if you see a scoreless game after 60 minutes with a team like Florida, you think…..what a boring game. This time was a different story, the two teams had an action packed game and the Bruins were clearly the more dominant team. Shawn Thorton got into his 3rd fight in 3 games taking on Florida’s Bryan Allen and give the win to Thorton on that one.
Tomas Vokoun stood on his head especially in the second period when the B’s had out-shot the Panthers 19-1 in that middle frame and stopping all 40 shots he faced through OT. Although Tim Thomas didn’t see nearly as many shots, he was equally as good coming up huge in more that one occasion and sealing his 2nd consecutive shut out with 4 seconds left in overtime as he made his 23rd save of the night. 65 minutes played and not a goal to be had.
The game goes to a shoot out and Thomas made a carnival like save as the puck hit the post, off his leg, dropped on the goal line as he swept it away with his blocker…did you get all that? The stale mate continued as Vokoun stuffed all 3 Boston shooters. The shootout then went to sudden death as Vokoun robs Michael Ryder with a huge glove save. It came down to Florida when Corey Stillman takes Thomas deep and beats him with back hand.What a heart breaker as Thomas gets a shut out loss out of the deal and Florida steals one in Boston.
