BRUINS: "WE'VE GOT THEM WHERE WE WANT THEM"

MONTREAL - After losing their ninth consecutive game to the formidable Canadiens on Tuesday night - by a score of 8-2 - the Boston Bruins are confident that they can come close to beating the Habs someday.

"We've got them where we want them," said Bruins head coach Claude Julien in a press conference held on Wednesday. "By which I mean we've gotten their confidence to a point where they know they can beat us without trying. That may be true, but we did score two goals against them on Tuesday, something they weren't expecting. That's the kind of team we believe we are, and I think one day, we'll prove that."

Despite only two more meetings remaining on this year's schedule, Julien and his assistant coaches have been spending all their available time painstakingly breaking down game films from their previous 9 clashes with the Canadiens. They've analyzed every play, every move, every save, and every goal for anything that might help them come close to maybe scoring one or two more some day.

Julien acknowledged to the media that the Canadiens are indeed the better team, but that his Bruins believe they can draw on the experience of the two goals from Tuesday night's ridiculously humliating loss and maybe make it a close game the next time they meet... Maybe.

"This team really believes they can one day come out of a game against those guys without feeling tremendous shame." Julien paused, then added, "and that's what we need... Dreams."

Meanwhile, the Canadiens are being careful not to give the Bruins any additional confidence.

"Yeah, well, sure they suck against us, but you should have seen how close they came to beating Toronto the other night," said forward Christopher Higgins. "They've got a good team, you know, I guess..."

Still, the Bruins refuse to be completely intimidated.

"We almost beat them back in '05," Julien said, noting that in that game, more than 3 years ago, the Bruins scored three times in a 7-3 nail-biter. "Read my lips," he said. "We're going score 4 one of these days."

As the press conference ended, Julien thanked the media and, as he got up to leave, was heard to say, "crap, we're never gonna beat these guys."