Some of the Bruins games this year have certainly been a bit lackluster. For some reason, that great cohesion and sense of teamwork we saw so much of last year has been missing in far too many games.

Sure, a number of players who were here last year are now gone (Ward, Axelsson, Yelle), and some are new (Morris, Paille), but the nucleus is still there. Definitely the team has been rocked by major injuries (Savard, Lucic) but the whole team this year just seemed kind of blah.

Fans expected this to change when the Montreal Canadiens came to town Thursday night, Nov. 5^th. But even then it seemed like it was a meh kind of night. Usually when these two teams get together there is all sorts of passion and fireworks going on. When it’s on, this decades- long rivalry is one of the most exciting in all of sports. But on this particular night it might as well have been the Columbus Blue Jackets in town for all the excitement that was generated.

It certainly didn’t help that the scoring was not there for the Bruins either. Of course, why should it be when it hadn’t been there in the previous two games, in which the Bs were completely shutout.

Thankfully Patrice Bergeron scored with a mere 52 seconds in regulation. With Tim Thomas pulled from the net, the Bs finally broke through the clutches of Habs goalie Carey Price. Thus was ended a long, long spell of no goals. (And thus thankfully another team record was still safe –five scoreless games set by the 1929 Bruins.)

The Bruins game against Buffalo on Saturday Nov. 7^th was much more exciting and not just because 4 different players scored for the Bs. They finally looked like they knew why they were there and what exactly they were supposed to do.

There was lot of energy on the ice, big crushing hits and great defensive work. The Bruins seemed to be in motion all night.

Buffalo’s big starry offense was pretty much shut down – just a mere two goals let in by Tuukka Rask.  The Sabres, who had gotten beaten up the night before by the Philadelphia Flyers, were probably wondering what the heck happened to the “cold as ice” team they thought they were going to be playing against.

Their back-up goalie, Jhonas Enroth, who got the start in net instead of Ryan Miller, probably felt cheated too. No doubt he thought it was going to be a good night to add to his stats – instead he ended up with the L.

Will this be what the Bruins need to get the season finally going? With a couple of tough games coming up against the Pittsburgh Penguins now would indeed be a good time for everyone to finally show up.