In a game they had no business winning (getting home at 3 a.m. from Chicago yesterday morning), the Boston Bruins (10-3-3) continued to defy logic this season as they handed the Montreal Canadiens (9-3-2) a 6-1 beating at the Garden.
Montreal is a good team and they had been waiting in Boston the night before while Boston went to a shootout to beat another quality team in Chicago.
The Bruins current win streak moved to five games while they broke a 12-game regular season losing streak to the Canadiens.
It was over early as Boston blitzed Montreal with three first period goals. One of the biggest surprises of the Bruins' season so far has been the play of its fourth line. The B's have more depth than almost any other NHL team.
This was on display as tough guy Shawn Thornton scored his first of the season off an assist from Stephane Yelle just 2:31 into the game.
Yelle scored his second of the season with three minutes left in the period. Thornton and Chuck Kobasew (who just returned from a broken leg) had the assists.
Marco Sturm (fifth of the season) scored a power play goal with seven seconds left. The assists were from Marc Savard and Michael Ryder.
3:44 into the second, Sturm added another power play strike, from Patrice Bergeron and Zdeno Chara.
Montreal finally woke up as Saku Koivu scored with help from Alex Tanguay.
Boston put it away in the third as Milan Lucic (5th of the season; from Phil Kessel) and Yelle (from Kobasew and Aaron Ward) made the B's lead 6-1.
In between those goals, Lucic took care of the only other thing Boston had to do: he beat the hell out of Canadiens enforcer Mike Komisarek, who had a great series against the Bruins in last spring's playoffs.
Canadiens goalie Carey Price still looks like a fraud as he made 25 stops but gave up all six goals. Bruins backup goalie Manny Fernandez had his second good game in a row (which is a great sign since he's one of the team's biggest question marks) with 27 saves.
The first-place Bruins travel to the Northeast's top team, the New York Rangers tomorrow night at Madison Square Garden.
No comments:
Post a Comment