Mess with the kitty, get the claws

"My daddy always told me to respect the pussy. Evidently, I did not, and it bit me," began the comments from GM Joshua Anderson. "Last week, I played up the fact that the Bruins ran roughshod over the Panthers, riding them hard and putting them away wet. But I boasted about it. And as any single guy knows, when you brag about pussy, it gets even."

The Panthers got even against the Bruins all right, defeating them 8-3.

It started early, as Florida's JY Leroux scored at the six minute mark. Martin Havlat evened things up three and a half minutes later, scoring off of a Keith Tkachuk assist for his sixteenth of the year, but the Bruins' offense - and for that matter, the defense - laid down afterwards.

Kim Johnsson - who is not a woman, but may as well have been as well as the Bruins' defense played - and Stephen Weiss both added goals before the end of the first period.

In the second period, Ivan Novoseltsev struck quickly, scoring at the 00:33 mark, to reach twenty-three goals on the year, while Pavel Bure scored his twentieth eight minutes later. Bill Guerin took the Boston team lead in goals when he scored his twenty-third of the year at 11:14, but it was all over but the shouting by that point, as the Bruins ended the period down 5-2.

The third period showed some life for the Bruins, as Peter Sykora beat Luongo a minute and a half into the period to make it 5-3. The Bruins defense further collapsed as before the end of the game, Pierre Dagenais would score once, and Owen Nolan twice to make the final 8-3.

"Obviously, Panthers GM Mike Perrault put something in our Powerade cooler to drug our team. That's all I have to say," GM Joshua Anderson stated.

The Bruins will next host the Anaheim Mighty Ducks.