Bruins Cap Memorable Month With Another Win in Toronto to Finish November 12-0-1

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Dec 1, 2011

Bruins Cap Memorable Month With Another Win in Toronto to Finish November 12-0-1The Bruins aren’t going to top June for the most memorable month of 2011, but they sure tried their best in November.

After a forgettable October that saw the reigning champs fall to last place in the East with a 3-7-0 record, Boston was nearly perfect in the second month of the season. Their only blemish was a shootout loss to Detroit last Friday. That snapped a 10-game win streak and has in turn been followed by two more victories, a 4-2 win over Winnipeg on Saturday and a 6-3 triumph in Toronto on Wednesday.

Wednesday’s win capped a 12-0-1 month that vaulted the Bruins to the top spot in the Northeast Division and second place in the conference. It was also the first time since January, 1969 that the Bruins have gone through an entire month without a single loss in regulation.

“It was a good November,” Bruins coach Claude Julien said. “To accomplish what we accomplished is pretty good. We needed that to get ourselves back where we feel we belong, so it was nice to see our guys come up with the win [Wednesday night]. It wasn’t maybe the prettiest game and I thought we could have been better in a lot of areas, but again we keep finding ways to win and score timely goals.”

The goals were plentiful all month long. The Bruins scored 57 of them in the 13 games, which doesn’t include shootout goals, while allowing just 24 goals. Twenty different Bruins skaters picked up points during the month, with 17 different players tallying goals. Defenseman Steven Kampfer was the only Bruin to play in November who did not record a point, and he dressed for just three games.

“It wasn’t one line or one defenseman,” Bruins forward Milan Lucic said. “I’m not taking anything away from anyone, but it was everyone stepping up and doing the job and playing more like we ended off last year.”

The stakes certainly weren’t as high in November as they were back in June when the Bruins were battling the Canucks for seven long games to claim the franchise’s first Stanley Cup in 39 years. But after leaving far too many points unclaimed in October, the Bruins couldn’t afford to let those struggles linger any longer if they wanted to give themselves a chance to defend their hard-earned title next spring.

“We knew we had to get ourselves back in the race,” Julien said. “We kind of set ourselves an objective to at least have a certain amount of points by the end of the month or by Thanksgiving, and we certainly surpassed that and more. I don’t think anybody thought at the end of October when we were 3-7 that we’d be in first place in our division and battling for first in our conference.”

But the Bruins are back atop the Northeast and back among the elite in the entire league. They’re proving that title won last spring was no fluke, and that their talented young team with such strong chemistry and camaraderie has been built to stay in contention for the long run.

And this is going to be a long run. The cliché goes that the NHL season is a marathon and not a sprint. The Bruins sprinted through November to catch up to — and pass — the pack after missing the start, but they know they still have a long race ahead of them. After their postseason success and the month they just put together, the Bruins also know they can beat anybody in the league if they play up to their capability.

“It’s a pretty good feeling,” Bruins center David Krejci said. “It’s so much fun in the room. It was a good month for us, but it doesn’t stop there. The season’s long and there’s lots of hockey in front of us, so hopefully we can keep it going.”

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