Bruins retaliate, lose to Pens

Associated Press

BOSTON

The revenge-minded Boston Bruins got in some early shots. The Pittsburgh Penguins connected on the ones that counted.

Marc-Andre Fleury made 17 saves for Pittsburgh’s first shutout of the season and the Penguins won 3-0 as the Bruins got little spark from their retaliation against Matt Cooke less than two minutes into the game Thursday night.

Shawn Thornton squared off with Cooke five seconds after the Penguin came on for his first shift. The anticipation of a fight had built since March 7, when Bruins center Marc Savard was sidelined indefinitely after Cooke’s blindside hit caused a Grade 2 concussion in Pittsburgh.

“We expected it to be intense and emotional but we were prepared to play hockey,” Sidney Crosby said.

The Penguins scored once in each period — goals by Tyler Kennedy, Alex Ponikarovsky and Michael Rupp.

Boston coach Claude Julien said four or five of his players had the flu and had little energy but stressed that it wasn’t an excuse for the poor performance.

“We certainly defended our teammate [Savard]) well,” Julien said, “but the other part of the game wasn’t there.”

Not even captain Zdeno Chara’s decision to fight Rupp at 11:43 of the second period could fire up his teammates, who are fighting for a playoff berth.

“At that point, we had nothing,” Chara said. “I really felt that was the right moment to bring some energy back, some emotion. We could use a little break so I just picked the time to do it.”

It didn’t work as the Bruins generated few chances before Ponikarovsky scored in the waning moments of the period.

“My teammates did great,” Fleury said.