|
Help
- Sports
Home - Yahoo!
|
|
BOSTON (TICKER) -- P.J. Axelsson missed two scoring chances in the third period but he made no mistake in overtime. Axelsson beat Curtis Joseph 3:58 into the extra period after Dave Andreychuk tied it with a pair of third-period goals as the Boston Bruins rallied for their seventh win in eight games, 4-3 over the Toronto Maple Leafs. Darren Van Impe intercepted a pass in his own zone and threw a pass to the red line. Axelsson got a step ahead of former Bruin Dmitri Khristich, carried over the Toronto blue line and lifted a backhander from the bottom of the right faceoff circle over Joseph's left shoulder. "I was a little surprised. Maybe I caught a break, but it was a great goal to score," Axelsson said. "I didn't have a lot of space to shoot it. It was just on my backhand and I threw it at the net in the one spot that was open." "That was a pretty good goal," Joseph said. "He didn't have much to shoot at, and I didn't expect it off his backhand." Boston was trailing, 3-2, when Axelsson shot wide of the net from in close with 5:40 left in regulation. In the final seconds of the third period, he got to a long rebound and shot a wrister that trickled past Joseph. But defenseman Dimitri Yushkevich swept the puck out of the crease. Andreychuk continued his remarkable start by scoring his league-leading 12th and 13th goals, as Boston bounced back from Wednesday's 6-2 loss at Buffalo. The 36-year-old left wing moved past Maurice "Rocket" Richard into 17th place on the all-time list with 545 goals, one season after scoring only 15 in 53 games for the New Jersey Devils. "It's a pretty awesome feeling being up there in that type of company. But it's even better getting two goals in the clutch to help win the game," Andreychuk said. "This is great for the fans. But this isn't the way I'd like to see us get it done every night," added Bruins coach Pat Burns. "It may be fun for those watching, but it ain't a lot of fun for me. But it is very encouraging that we won this game. We did work hard, and Axelsson's goal was a helluva shot." Khristich opened the scoring against his former team and Jonas Hoglund and Sergei Berezin had power-play goals for Toronto, which has lost four straight at Boston. The Maple Leafs fell to 9-2 when leading after two periods. "Well, we let them work themselves back in the game in that third period," Toronto coach Pat Quinn said. "They get helped out by a penalty against us, which I didn't think was a good call. But nevertheless, we let them back in it." Khristich returned to Boston for the first time since the Bruins walked away from his $2.4 million contract and traded him to Toronto. He opened the scoring at 14:37 of the first period by sliding a backhander just under goaltender Byron Dafoe's stick. After the game, he did little to hide his disdain for Boston general manager Harry Sinden. "It was nice to have the goal but I have nothing to prove here. I don't ever need to see Harry again. If I never talk to him again, that'll be fine with me," Khristich said. "What I need to prove it to my teammates, not to the Bruins." Hoglund doubled the lead on the power play just over three minutes later, but Anson Carter got Boston on the board 4:24 into the second period. Berezin answered at 11:53 with a power-play goal, beating Dafoe with a slap shot from the edge of the left circle. But Andreychuk sparked the Bruins' comeback at 9:58 of the third period. During a power play, he lunged for the rebound of Van Impe's slap shot from the top of the right circle and put the puck past Joseph. Just over 6 1/2 minutes later, Andreychuk slipped away from defenseman Danny Markov's check just in front of the net and flicked Jason Allison's feed past Joseph. "It's pretty simple with us. If we keep working the puck down low and get in front of the net, we're going to have success. And that's how I think we got back in the game," Andreychuk said.
updated at Thu Nov 11 20:27:37 1999 PT | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||