BERGY ON FIRE AS B’S RAZE ’CANES
Career night for cagey vet
The hallmarks of the Bruins’ surge up the standings have been their depth and the multiple ways in which they can win games. Some nights the fourth line can carry them. Other nights, they will be powered by the back end. Their goaltenders have earned a couple of firststar honors as well.
But National Hockey League teams best not forget that the B’s possess a pretty special first line with Grade A talent. And last night, the trio let the Carolina Hurricanes know it. The night belonged to Patrice Bergeron, who scored a career-high four goals and tied a career high in points (five). His linemates, meanwhile, played strong supporting roles. Brad Marchand provided four assists and David Pastrnak notched three points as the B’s sailed to a 7-1 victory over the ’Canes at the Garden.
“They’re the best line in hockey,” said Torey Krug. “When they’re feeling it, you just try and get the puck in their hands and let them do the work. It’s a lot of fun watching them play.”
The B’s also got goals from Jake DeBrusk and Riley Nash, while Anton Khudobin (27 saves) enjoyed the drama-free victory.
Bergeron scored all four goals in the first 30:45 of the game and he played only 14:18, which could be valuable when the B’s take on Pittsburgh tonight in their last game before the bye week. He scored three different ways — even-strength, shorthanded and on the power play.
“It was awesome. (Bergeron) deserves it. He’s a hell of a player. Those guys were finding him and he was finding the space and it was a lot of fun to watch,” said Kevan Miller, who had a plus-4 game with an assist.
Bergeron’s big night was the first time a Bruin scored four goals in a game since Dave Andreychuk on Oct. 28, 1999, and Bergeron became the 16th Bruin to complete the feat. With his four goals, Bergeron now has 16 tallies, tying him with — guess who? — Pastrnak and Marchand for the team lead.
“I told them in the room they were probably tired of reading about (Sean) Kuraly and Nash supplying all the offense, so they said, ‘To heck with that,’ ” cracked coach Bruce Cassidy, whose team has scored 20 goals in the last four games.
Bergeron gave the 17,565 in attendance a hint of what they were going to get just 3:14 into the game. With David Krejci in the box for high-sticking, Zdeno Chara chipped the puck toward the left boards where Marchand made a nice indirect pass off the boards to Bergeron. The dynamic duo crisscrossed in the neutral zone with Marchand heading for the net. But Bergeron decided to keep it and simply beat Ward cleanly over the glove hand for a shorthanded goal.
Nash made it 2-0 at 5:43 on another shot from the right circle. Miller pushed it up along the right wing to Nash, who simply took it to the circle and let a wrister fly. As he did with Bergeron’s shot, Ward waved at the puck as it went by him into the net. That was enough for Carolina coach Bill Peters, who yanked his goalie in favor of Scott Darling. It temporarily looked like the move would work.
Shortly after the goalie change, Darling stopped Marchand on a clean breakin on another shorthanded attempt and the ’Canes went right back down the ice to score — a Jordan Staal redirect of Teuvo Teravainen’s shot/pass at 7:09 — to cut the lead in half.
But the B’s didn’t flinch. On their first power-play opportunity, Pastrnak broke his 10game goal-scoring drought
when he crushed a one-timer off a beautiful cross-ice feed from Bergeron at 9:04.
Then DeBrusk snapped his six-game goal-less streak at 10:22. Ryan Spooner and Krejci exchanged the puck out high in the offensive zone a couple of times before Spooner snapped an uncharacteristic long-range shot. DeBrusk got his stick on it for his ninth of the year.
Bergeron notched the hat trick at 5:36 of the second when he cleaned up a loose puck and then added his fourth on a brilliant payback pass from Pastrnak at 10:45.
From there, the B’s took it home on cruise control.