Bruins Beat Habs, Marchand with Hatty

(Photo: Fred Kfoury III/Icon Sportswire)

Wednesday night’s game between the Boston Bruins and the Montreal Canadiens was originally supposed to be a road game for Boston, but with the mandate of no fans in the arenas in Canada due to COVID-19, the home game originally expected to be played March 21 in Boston became a home game on January 12.

The first 12 minutes of the opening period didn’t display much energy. It was unclear if the teams were feeling each other out or if perhaps the animosity between these rivals just wasn’t there. However, when Brad Marchand put Boston on the scoreboard at 14:43 of the first period with assists from Tomas Nosek and Curtis Lazar, things began to heat up. Of course, it could have had something to do with the fact that Marchand was able to pot his second goal of the game 15 seconds later, this time assisted by his line mates Craig Smith and Patrice Bergeron.

Since the COVID pause the Bruins have reached another level in their playing. However, the break-up of the Bergeron line that saw David Pastrnak moved to the second line and Smith moved up to the first beginning with the January 4 game against the New Jersey Devils has really put the team in forward motion, and that motion continued against Montreal—especially with the secondary scoring.

After Marchand’s second goal, which was more of a baseball hit than a hockey shot, the Canadiens had to swap out their starting goaltender Jake Allen, who apparently suffered an injury, putting in Sam Montembeault.

Lazar added a late first period goal at 19:10 assisted by Jake DeBrusk and Matt Grzelcyk to give the Bruins a 3-0 lead entering the first intermission. Grzelcyk came into Wednesday’s game riding a stellar five-point (1G, 4A) career-high game on Monday in Washington, D.C.

Early in the second the Bruins were called for two penalties while the Canadiens were whistled for one. Bergeron went off for a slashing at 3:18. Three and a half minutes later Erik Haula was sent for a hooking penalty and then Ben Chiarot was sent at 7:50 for roughing. However, while killing Haula’s penalty, Marchand notched his 19th goal of the season, and his third of the game, a shorthanded goal, at 7:10 and the hats came flying down onto the ice.

As has been seen during many Bruins games where a player scores the hat trick, Marchand selected one of the thrown hats.

“That tradition’s been going on for a very long time. It’s been as long as I’ve been here, and I know it dates back a lot longer than that. Just happy to be a part of the tradition,” Marchand said.

Michael Pezzetta would put Montreal on the scoresheet at 10:46 of the middle frame, with an assist from Brett Kulak.

About a minute later though, Bergeron took exception to a hit by Pezzetta on Grzelcyk, which saw Bergeron manhandling the forward before he was pulled off by Christian Dvorak and they tussled. Bergeron was again sent to the box, this time for roughing. And frustrations could be seen mounting in the Canadiens players. Nick Suzuki was whistled for a hold just nine seconds before Bergeron’s penalty came to an end, and then Kulak was sent off with 50 seconds remaining in the period for a slash.

The parade to the sin bin continued. Just 47 seconds into the third period, Smith was sent off for tripping, negating the carryover power play the Bruins had. Five minutes later Marchand was sent off for interference. It was while the Canadiens were on that power play that the kettle boiled over.

The Bruins were able to lock up the puck in the corner while on the penalty kill, which saw three players from each team trying to do something to get the puck. Out of that though emerged Haula and Chris Wideman who were going at each other. It was later seen, in replay, that while they and the others were tangled up in the corner, Wideman gave Haula a headbutt and Haula responded. Brandon Carlo and Pezzetta (who seemed to be everywhere things were happening) were also sent off. Carlo, Pezzetta, and Haula each got roughings, as did Wideman, but he got an extra two minutes for unsportsmanlike conduct all at 6:57.

At 10:19 of the final frame, it looked like Urho Vaakanainen had notched his first career NHL goal, but it was ultimately awarded to Lazar, with assists from Vaakanainen and Anton Blidh. For Lazar, this gave him his first ever two-goal game.

With just under five minutes remaining in regulation the final dust up took place between the rival teams. Laurent Dauphin had been doing his best to get in the way of Bruins netminder Linus Ullmark. Ullmark did not approve and grabbed at Dauphin as he was skating around the net. And the next thing everyone saw was Haula dropping the mitts with Dauphin. When things shook out, Ullmark had an interference penalty, Haula had five minutes for fighting and Dauphin received the five for fighting an extra two embellishment. Haula gained acceptance from the Bruins fans for his willingness to get physical on Wednesday night.

When the final horn sounded, the Boston Bruins took the 5-1 victory and since coming out of the COVID pause, they are 6-1-0. Wednesday night’s game was the first of a seven-game homestand.