Something brewin' on Causeway Street

In the aftermath of Game 6 in April, the Bruins had an audience. They had the chance to make us sit down and take notice. They had the chance to keep us, to convince us, to prove once and for all that hockey had returned to the indisputable hub of the sports world.

Now here we are, 19 games into the 2008-09 hockey season, and the darnedest thing is happening at the TD Banknorth Garden. The Bruins have catapulted into December as if last April were a spring. Last night's thoroughly entertaining 7-4 victory over Buffalo extended the Bruins' current run to 10-1-1 in their last 12 games, widening their lead in the Northeast Division to six points and leaving them behind only the New York Rangers and San Jose Sharks for the highest point total in the entire NHL.

Don't look now, but something appears to be brewin'.

"I don't know if anybody thought we would do this well, but I knew we had the capability," Bruins goalie Tim Thomas said yesterday following the team's customary morning skate. "To be 9-1-1 in the last 11 games is pretty impressive. I don't care who you are."

Then, as Thomas watched from the bench and with Manny Fernandez between the proverbial pipes, the Bruins went out and sniped their way to a high-scoring win that might have left coach Claude Julien with an upset stomach -- what's the French word for agita, anyway? -- were it not for the simple fact that the night resulted in another two points. The Bruins faced deficits of 1-0, 3-1 and 4-2 in the first period alone, then scored the final five goals of the night to win for the 12th time this year.

So what exactly do we have here? Even the Bruins do not seem to know for sure. Maybe they are still a little too wary to wonder. Two years ago, despite having added Zdeno Chara and Marc Savard to the cause, the Bruins skated face first into the boards and finished last in the division. Under then coach Dave Lewis, that undisciplined crew allowed a whopping 289 goals, more than any team in the league but the Philadelphia Flyers. In terms of goals scored, only seven teams had fewer.

All of that began to change under Julien, who brought order, pride, and structure back to the Boston uniform. The B's started to earn their spokes again. And as much as the Bruins have yet to win a playoff series since 1999 -- they have won just one since 1994 -- what they proved last spring is that they are no longer a doormat, no longer an uninspiring bore.

Small strides, friends.

Small strides.

"The reason I signed here is because I knew they were headed in the right direction and I wanted to be a part of it," said the gifted Savard, who had a goal and three assists against the Sabres to move him into third place in the league scoring race. "Now I think we're seeing what we can be."

Exactly what that is remains to be seen, of course, and even the Bruins are smart enough to know that they would be ill-advised to look over their shoulders. Truth be told, the team simply cannot expect to win the way it did last night. In the 89 regular season and postseason games the Bruins played last season, they scored as many as seven goals on just one occasion. The year before, the B's similarly did it once. Julien preaches defense first, offense second, and he has no tolerance for anyone unwilling to buy in, no matter how great the potential payoff. Just ask Phil Kessel.

"We don't want to play like this, obviously, and Claude probably doesn't want to see that either," mused Savard. "So I think we're just doing things it takes to win right now. Obviously we want to win the games 2-1, but tonight it was a game I guess we had to win 7-4."

Nonetheless, the Bruins now haven seven players on pace to score 20 goals this season, another two or three on the cusp of that pace. Five players scored goals last night. There is not yet the kind of buzz at the Garden that there could be -- should be? -- though forgive the masses if they will need additional convincing. The Bruins have done nothing for far too long for skeptics to come flocking back to what has been a couple of good months.

Of course, all of this goes back to Game 6 of the first-round series against the Montreal Canadiens, the top seed in the Eastern Conference during last year's playoffs. The Bruins trailed the series by a 3-1 count before a resounding 5-1 victory at Montreal in Game 5, but they looked cooked entering the third period of Game 6 at home. The stingy Canadiens had a 2-1 lead entering what looked to be the final period of the 2007-08 Boston hockey season when the Bruins turned in the kind of period that could not help but make you take notice.

In the final 20 minutes of Game 6, the Bruins scored four times, twice to erase deficits, once to win the game. It was the kind of fight that made even the great Cam Neely jump from his seat and cheer. The Bruins went on to get skunked in Game 7 by a lopsided 5-0 score, but Game 6 provided more than a glimmer of hope for a team that desperately needed one.

"The playoff series was a growth step, so to speak," said Thomas, the possessor of a sterling 1.78 goals-against average this season. "Having said that, with a whole summer off, it could end up doing nothing for you. Our goal as a team was to pick where we left off and not waste that growth."

Right now, they're doing one better.

They're building on it.