Wideman settling in well

Calming the puck is key to success

WILMINGTON - It was only a few weeks ago that Bruins coach Claude Julien was excoriating his defense for not producing enough offense. The blue liners came through Thursday night in a 5-2 victory over the Maple Leafs, led by Dennis Wideman, who scored the Bruins' first goal and set up the second. And Zdeno Chara got his first goal of the season in the third period to make it 4-1.

The Bruins' first two goals came on the power play, where Wideman is becoming increasingly dangerous. Generally, he mans the left point on the second unit, with Andrew Ference at the right point and some combination of the younger set up front: David Krejci, Blake Wheeler, Milan Lucic, and Phil Kessel.

It was Wideman's whistler from the point that started the scoring at 5:56 of the first period. A little less than two minutes later, Wideman cracked another from the left point and Wheeler, staked out in front of the net, tipped it in for the first of his three goals.

"Part of it is just getting our shots through," said Julien, whose team hosts the Sabres tonight. "I thought [Thursday] night we did a good job of getting them through. Wideman's goal basically was hitting the net, but he got it through. We had two guys who did a great job at screening the goaltender so he didn't see [the puck], and then [Chara], it was nice to see him find the mark. It's going to be great for his confidence, and hopefully, he can start shooting the puck even better."

Wideman, who has three goals and four assists in 13 games, has found it helps if he stops to settle the puck before shooting. Then he can see where the seam in the defense is.

"I want to calm it down as much as I can so I don't shoot it over the net or hit someone or don't have any idea where it's going," he said. "If I have time to calm it down, then I will; if I don't have time to calm it down, then it usually means that a guy's coming at me pretty hard.

"With a lot of teams now, it's tough to get shots through. So unless you can calm it down and get your head up, you might get those things blocked by the centerman and their wingers will then come at you, and if the centerman sees that, he can take off and you can get a lot of breakaways that way. That's something guys like [Ilya] Kovalchuk and [Alexander] Ovechkin do a lot, so you have to be really careful about getting shots blocked too high in the slot."

Wideman saw Wheeler moving to the front of the net, so instead of passing off to Ference at the right point as he first planned, he fired the puck at the net, hoping for a tip.

"I saw Wheeler had a step on his guy," said Wideman, "so I had to get it through to him because there was no one in front."

Good humor men

The good humor that followed the victory over the Maple Leafs spilled onto the ice yesterday as the Bruins had a short but spirited practice with all but Patrice Bergeron and Shane Hnidy (lower-body injury) participating. "There's nothing wrong with [Bergeron]; I just gave him a day off," said Julien. "The one thing is, he's recovering, obviously, from his [concussion] last year and he's been pushing hard since the beginning of the summer, so I think at some point, we've got to make sure we give him a little bit of rest because he's had to work harder than anybody else on our team." . . . Chuck Kobasew practiced and is closer to returning to game action from a fractured ankle, but Julien said he won't make a decision on playing Kobasew against Buffalo until today. "Am I leaning toward putting him in? Yeah. I can tell you that much," said the coach . . . Kobasew skated on a line with Shawn Thornton and Stephane Yelle. Other practice combos: P.J. Axelsson, Petteri Nokelainen, and Michael Ryder; Lucic, Kessel, and Marc Savard; and Wheeler, Krejci, and Marco Sturm . . . The team spent a lot of time working on four-on-four situations and gave goalies Tim Thomas and Manny Fernandez plenty of work, particularly with tip-ins. "We worked hard but we also have fun out there," said Chara, who helped set the tone by wearing a big grin for most of the session. "It was short, but good intensity. It's a long season. You can't be always serious and you can't be always having fun. It's easier to have fun when you're winning." With regard to the four-on-four drills, Wideman said, "Well, I don't think we're very good at it. I know we haven't scored a lot."

Barbara Matson can be reached at matson@globe.com.