BOSTON – The last time the Bruins and Maple Leafs met, the home team quickly found itself up a two-spot and Mike Van Ryn was busy picking shreds of Plexiglas off his sweater. And it was at that moment that the Bruins, not the Maple Leafs, or Van Ryn sweater, started to mothball, as the home team gave up four unanswered goals en route to the club’s worst loss of the short season. Amid the earth-shattering applause for Milan Lucic, the stoppage in play unraveled the high flying Bruins, who found themselves outwork, outplayed and out-hustled over the final two periods, much to the dismay of head coach Claude Julien.

“Toronto is building a reputation on comebacks and you don’t want to let them do that,” Bruins goaltender Tim Thomas said. “You want to be the team that shows them, not us, not tonight.”

So last night, when the Bruins found themselves up a pair early and Jason Blake found himself a seat on the Bruins bench thanks to Mark Stuart, the focus of the men wearing black and gold was to keep the petal to the metal. Because, as they found out a few weeks earlier, anything can, will and usually does happen when you don’t stick the petal to the metal.

Special teams were a factor early in this one as Dennis Wideman scored just six minutes into the game on the power play. Then, as in the first meeting, Blake Wheeler put the B’s up by a pair on Thomas Holmstrom's deflection in front off a Wideman shot from the point.

"We got ourselves in penalty trouble, they took advantage," Toronto head coach Ron Wilson said. "A couple of fluky kind of long-shot goals that changed direction on the goalie."

Wheeler’s second of the night came on a stellar effort with 14:42 left in the second period. Off a pass from Marco Sturm in the slot, the rookie forward deked from his forehand to his backhand, crossing up Vesa Toskala like a point guard. The Toronto netminder flopped in an unsuccessful attempt to stop the shot from going in. It was the fifth of the season for the Boston rookie, with Toskala the victim for three of those. He picked up number six, the hat trick with 52.3 seconds left to go to make it 5-2.

“It’s just all about reacting and working for your linemates”, Wheeler said of his second goal. “We got a couple free pucks and one squirted loose and I just happen to be in open space. “

For the Bruins, if there was ever a night for a letdown, it would have been this one. Just four days removed from an emotional fight-fest against Dallas, the B's maintained their focus from start to finish. Held up, as usual by the stellar goaltending of Tim Thomas who stopped 34 of 36 shots. Zdeno Chara also added his first goal of the season late in the third period.

“That was a topic of conversation before the game,” defenseman Andrew Ference said. “It was nice to see not a lot of lag and to see the guys come out hard and sustain it. We’re obviously learning some valuable lessons.