Best team in the NHL?

They still have five more points and the best record in the NHL but the San Jose Sharks have lost two straight games, including a 6-0 beating in Detroit last night.

Your Boston Bruins (22-5-4) on the other hand, continue to cruise as they beat the Maple Leafs (12-13-6), 8-5, last night in a wild game at the Garden.

The B's have now won 12 consecutive home games and Phil Kessel (2 goals, 1 assist) picked up a point in his 16th straight game. Oh and David Krejci scored his first career hat trick and Marc Savard added a goal and three assists.

Sure, they had a big defensive lapse in the second period as a 5-1 lead turned into a 6-5 nail biter but they still won. Last night was the type of game that in the past 3-4 years that the B's would have lost, most likely in spectacular fashion.

Starting goaltender Tim Thomas was pulled in the third for Manny Fernandez and the moved paid off as Fernandez held the Leafs scoreless in the third.

It hasn't been as effortless and pretty lately for the Bruins but can we argue with the results? As far as them being the best team, that's also hard to say. They haven't played the Sharks yet but they did beat the Red Wings. It's all empty arguments that bloggers like myself get to make with no real evidence for or against our case. The wonders of the Internet indeed.

In his first game back after missing 12 games with a concussion, Marco Sturm scored 36 seconds into the game (from Chuck Kobasew and Patrice Bergeron).

Dubbed the Bruins' Willis McGahee by my buddy, Sturm proceeded to get hurt later in the period and didn't return. He's a talented player but he can never seem to get healthy for a lengthy span of time.

Less than four minutes later, Krejci scored his first goal of the night (9th overall), on a power play from Kessel and Milan Lucic.

At 7:23 Pavel Kubina scored a power play goal for Toronto, assisted by Nikolai Kulemin and Nik Antropov.

Charles Manson would have approved of the second period's Helter Skelter action (what a literary reference!) as the teams combined for a bat-shit crazy eight goals.

Savard scored a power play goal at 1:28 (his 9th) from Zdeno Chara and P.J. Axelsson. 35 seconds later, Krejci made it 4-1 with a sweet move around Leafs goalie Curtis Joseph (yes that one). Krejci collected the puck and deked around Joseph while Krejci's body was actually to the side and behind the goalmouth. He reached around the net and shoveled it in.

Kessel gave Boston its biggest lead at 4:21 when he scored his 20th goal of the year, from Savard.

In the span of eight minutes, Toronto used three tip-in goals to close the margin to 5-4. Alexei Ponikarovsky (Jeff Finger, Lee Stempniak), Antropov ( John Mitchell, Finger) and Mikhail Grabovski (Mike Van Ryn, Ponikarovsky) all lit the lamp.

With two minutes left in the second, Kessel scored again (Axelsson, Savard) but Jason Blake notched a power play goal (Tomas Kaberle, Kubina) when there was 44 seconds remaining.

The Bruins capped off a ridiculous 4-for-6 night on the power play with two more goals in the third on the man advantage.

Michael Ryder (11th) scored after a pass by Chara and Krejci completed his hat trick with Savard and Dennis Wideman providing the helpers.

Boston has today off but then Carolina comes to the Garden tomorrow for an afternoon matinee then they travel to St. Louis for a game Sunday night.