Bruins give away a win in Toronto

I'm not saying that the Boston Bruins really deserved to win last night since the Toronto Maple Leafs outplayed them for most of the game but still, the B's were 42 seconds away from wrapping up a nice road win at the Air Canada Centre.

Instead, they gave up the tying goal to Kris Versteeg (with 19 seconds left on Patrice Bergeron's penalty) with 42 seconds left in the third period and then they lost in a shootout 3-2.

Boston (14-8-3) still gets the bogus point from making it to the shootout but the fact that Phil Kessel had the deciding goal in that dumb format makes this one tougher to swallow. Oh and we have Toronto's (9-12-4) first round pick for next season too (hell of a trade there Brian Burke) so the more losses the better, much like the New England Patriots and the Oakland Raiders.

Bruins goaltender Tim Thomas (40 saves; 13-2-2) did not earn a loss by any means. As usual this season, he stood on his head and made as crazy uncle Jack Edwards termed them a flurry of "ridiculous saves."

Nathan Horton broke out of his 10-game scoring slump with an unassisted goal at 4:48 of the first period.

Shawn Thornton got his sixth fighting major of the season after he squared off with AHL callup Jay Rosehill less than four minutes after Horton's goal.

The Leafs' Carl Gunnarsson tied it up at 15:53 of the first period after a lucky bounce and nice passing from teammates Tyler Bozak and Nazem Kadri.

After a scoreless second period, Gregory Campbell looked to be the hero for the Bruins (his dad must have been so pumped) in the third period when he finished a nice feed from Tyler Seguin (who got it from Johnny Boychuk). Campbell started the play by keeping the puck in the Toronto defensive zone then Seguin hit him with a tidy backhander and he whipped in a wrist shot at 6:08.

In the shootout, Kadri led off and scored but Seguin answered it (he is awesome at shootouts). After Nikolai Kulemin and David Krejci were stopped, Kessel scored and Michael Ryder did not.

The Bruins will try to recover from this swift kick in the balls with a few days off before they host the Buffalo Sabres on Tuesday, the start of a three-game home set.