After perfect win, Bruins must now keep it up

A week ago, it seemed as though the Bruins [team stats] had chosen a positively dreadful time to hit the skids, their 1-3-3 slump terribly ill-timed with the playoffs fast approaching.

Now, to the delight of B’s fans, it’s the Montreal Canadiens who may be in trouble on the brink of the post-season. With a division title still very much in reach, the Habs have been shut out in their last two games, and utterly outclassed in the 7-0 loss to the Bruins on Thursday at the Garden.

The B’s got a day off to relish maybe their sweetest and most impressive win of the season. With two excellent outcomes this week, the team turned its season around in dramatic fashion. Now the mandate has to be continuing the hot streak right into Game 1 of the playoffs, quite possibly against Montreal.

“It should be a big confidence booster for us going forward,” said B’s goalie Tim Thomas [stats], after stopping 24 shots for his eighth shutout this year and No. 25 in his career.

After stopping 54-of-55 shots the last two games, Thomas extended his NHL lead in goals-against average (2.02, to 2.10 for runner-up Pekka Rinne of Nashville and save percentage, .938, to Rinne’s .929).

If Thomas finishes well, he should be the easy favorite to win his second Vezina Trophy.

But more importantly, the B’s seem to have re-discovered their blue-collar identity.

“It’s the blueprint of the type of game we want to play,” said Thomas. “Get traffic in front of the net, put pucks to the net through traffic, move our feet, get the puck in deep so we can draw some penalties. We stayed out of the box for the most part. That was a complete, solid game.”

The Bruins will probably need another one today at the Garden, with the New York Rangers arriving on a 7-1-1 hot streak. The Blueshirts (85 points, with seven games left) are pretty well set for a playoff berth, but surely would like to climb from their current No. 7 position.

If they can catch the Canadiens (87, seven left) for sixth, it might mean a B’s-Rangers first-rounder instead of the 33rd B’s-Habs series.

After today, the B’s face another tough one tomorrow night in Philadelphia against the Flyers, with home games against Chicago and Toronto on tap Tuesday and Thursday.

But Bruins confidence is certainly high after the back-to-back victories over New Jersey and Montreal. Now watch with interest to see whether the Canadiens can pull their game back together.

It’s a safe bet the Habs came to Boston figuring the setup for Thursday’s game was perfect. There had been dire warnings from the league that a night of mayhem hockey would not be tolerated. They probably reasoned that the Bruins wouldn’t beat them by kicking their butts up and down the ice, so this would be a game of pure skill.

And in that sort of game, the Canadiens no doubt believed they were superior to the Bruins.

They don’t believe that anymore, not after being fully dominated by the B’s in skating, passing, shooting, system-play, special teams, goaltending and just about any other category you can name.

After the Bruins ran their lead to 4-0 in the third period, it was easy to see the life go out of the Canadiens. They more or less mailed it in the rest of the way, which must have made goalies Carey Price and Alex Auld real happy.