by By STEPHEN HARRIS , The Boston Herald

This may have been the best game this season by the Bruins ; it was certainly the best by Chara, who recently has been damned with faint praise by coach Claude Julien.

``He's never been bad, he's been OK,'' Julien said. ``Unfortunately, for an elite player like him, everybody wants him to be better than OK.''

Chara was a whole lot better than that in this one, given the assignment all day of neutralizing the Oilers' highly productive Horcoff-Dustin Penner-Ales Hemsky line. It was a mismatch: With Chara hitting (eight hits) and using his reach, the Oilers line didn't have a shot after 40 minutes and finished with just two. ``He played with an edge, a controlled edge,'' Julien said. ``He was dominant along the boards. He outmuscled everybody and he always came up with the puck. (He was) just a more determined player.

``That's the kind of game, if Z plays that way for us every night, that's going to make our team that much better.''

Chara said he was well aware of the comments that he hadn't played as well as he did in his Norris Trophy season last year, and he didn't deny it.

``I just know when you're one of the top players in the league, good is not good enough,'' Chara said. ``You have to play almost perfect in every game. That's the way it is. When you're one of the better players in the league, and captain, you have to accept that.''

Smooth transition

This was surely the Bruins' best transition game of the season, as they consistently played pucks crisply out of their end and hit breaking forwards to produce lots of speed up the ice.

``We've never had that much speed going through the neutral zone like (yesterday),'' said defenseman Dennis Wideman. ``If you can tell me what we were doing different, that'd be great. I don't know what it was, but I know we had a lot more speed coming off breakouts.'' . . .

Remarkably, the Bruins have shut out the Oilers in their last three meetings, a whitewash streak of 204:02. Only once before in team history (vs. the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1927-28) have the B's blanked a team three successive times.

Julien earns No. 100

The victory was Julien's 100th in his 176th game behind the Bruins bench. Only Tom Johnson (138 games) and Don Cherry (175) reached the century mark faster for the B's. . . .

It was the 400th NHL game for B's winger Michael Ryder, who has 129-137-266 totals. Winger Daniel Paille played his 200th game. . . .

The first period was played in just 25 minutes. The scoreless period included just 12 shots on goal, few if any real scoring chances and no penalties.

With no fights, just four minor penalties and little scoring, the game was played in just over two hours.

Going fourth

Though the day belonged to the Bruins' third line, the fourth-liners again delivered a terrific showing. Shawn Thornton was almost rewarded with a tap-in of a Byron Bitz rebound, but the puck was cleared at the last moment.

``You need different people to come up big for you, especially when you're fighting to score goals,'' Julien said. ``You need more than just the obvious guys to score goals for you.'' . . .

The Bruins chartered after the game to New York, where they face the much-improved Rangers this afternoon.

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