It took longer than he would have liked, but a healthy Anton Khudobin finally started a game for the Bruins on Thursday, and he sent a message that both the B's and Boston fans needed to hear. 

The game was essentially meaningless. If it had any sort of implications, the B’s wouldn’t have left Tim Thomas, Zdeno Chara and Patrice Bergeron back in Boston to rest. Still, what Khudobin did Thursday showed that if a scenario arises in which he is needed to tend goal for the B’s in the first round of the playoffs, it may not be the end of the world. 

Making his Bruins debut and playing in just his seventh career NHL game, Khudobin, who did not have the benefit of playing behind Chara, limited the Senators to just one goal on 45 shots. His 44 saves were the most he’s had in an NHL game in his career, and the fact that they came against the Bruins’ likely first-round opponent makes the performance even more encouraging.  

“There’s no doubt he was our best player tonight,” B’s coach Claude Julien told reporters following the game. 

Khudobin likely would have made a few more starts for the Bruins this season had it not been for a wrist injury. The 25-year-old Kazakhstan native had injured his in late February while shooting a puck in a game for Providence, meaning that when Tuukka Rask went down with an abdomen strain/groin strain on March 4, Khudobin was unavailable. 

“Sometimes it happens in hockey,” Khudobin said earlier in the week. “[Maybe they would have] called me up, but I was hurt too. I just tried to keep moving forward.”

The addition of Marty Turco served as a good stopgap, but because he doesn’t have playoff eligibility, it was clear from the time Turco was signed that if Rask wasn’t ready for the playoffs, Khudobin would have to be Thomas’ backup. The B’s finally recalled Khudobin on Monday, and though the second seed was clinched and the remaining regular-season games didn’t ultimately matter, there was still anticipation for Khudobin’s first start as a Bruin. Of course, the Bruins wouldn’t want to use him in the playoffs, but they wanted to get him some NHL action to prepare him in case Rask isn’t ready and anything should happen to Thomas. 

At the time of the Rask injury, there was legitimate reason to worry. The Bruins were blowing a division lead, needed points, and were already playing Tim Thomas a ton. The problem that Khudobin’s injury prevented them from having an obvious choice to take Rask’s minutes. Luckily for the Bruins, they were able to hit their stride and saw Ottawa cool off enough in time for them to seal the division and get Thomas the rest he needed. Thomas should get one last start Saturday, giving him four games between games when he takes to the pipes Thursday at the Garden.  

BRUINS DODGE A BULLLET WITH BOYCHUK

When Johnny Boychuk fell to the ice while trying to hit Aaron Asham Tuesday night, it looked like the worst-case scenario for Bruins fans. It looked like they were going to lose an important player right before the playoffs because of something that happened in a meaningless game. 

Luckily for the Bruins, looks can be deceiving. Julien told reporters in Ottawa on Thursday that it was just a mild knee sprain for Boychuk, and that the defenseman is considered day-to-day.

Nobody has ever accused Boychuk of being anything but tough, but now they can say that both he and the B’s are lucky. If the injury, which kept Boychuk on the ice with trainer Don DelNegro before teammates helped him off the ice, was serious, the B’s would have been looking at either Joe Corvo or Mike Mottau jumping into the lineup for the postseason. That wouldn’t have been the end of the world -- in fact, it would have shown why the B’s traded for multiple defenseman (Greg Zanon and Mottau) at the deadline -- but losing Boychuk and his 20:37 a game average would have hurt. 

The B’s also had a bit of an injury scare Thursday when Adam McQuaid left the game in the second period and did not return. Julien said after the game that the team was simply being careful. 

“It just didn’t feel quite right,” Julien said in his postgame interview with NESN of McQuaid, who was playing in his first game back game since suffering a swollen eye on March 29 against the Capitals. “We wanted to make sure we took precaution and we pulled him out. … This isn’t the time to take any sort of chances.”

This also isn’t the time that the Bruins want to see injury scares on their blueline. Defensemen go down in the playoffs -- just ask the Canucks, who saw Keith Ballard and Dan Hamhuis suffer injuries in the postseason last year before losing Aaron Rome to a suspension following the Nathan Horton hit. Teams need depth on the back end, and the Bruins are fortunate enough to have people ready in case any of these scares turn into something serious.