Bruins bear witness to big feat
Pastrnak pelts Senators with 19th career hat trick
A flying bear was spotted at TD Garden Tuesday night.
No, seriously.
Right after flying Bruin David Pastrnak struck for his third goal of a 6-2 win over the Senators, a bear floated down from the sky, joining the cache of chapeaus that traditionally mark three-goal outbursts.
It was the 19th career hat trick for Pastrnak, who was just as surprised as everyone else to see the combination hat/pelt hit the ice.
“I really wonder how they got it there,” a perplexed Pastrnak said. “Obviously credit to the one who threw it there.”
Pastrnak decided to keep the unique headgear as a souvenir, but the original owner didn’t go home empty-handed, however.
“They came after the game to the bench, so I gave them a stick as a thank you for the bear,” Pastrnak said.
The Bruins’ leading scorer connected twice for a 2-0 lead after the first period, but his third set off a three-goal third-period surge that put the game out of the Senators’ reach.
The third period was important for the Bruins, who nearly blew a 5-2 lead against the Flyers Saturday and have had trouble extending leads and closing games out this season.
The Senators had trimmed Boston’s lead to 3-2 on Brady Tkachuk’s goal with 4 seconds left in the second. Jim Montgomery’s message after 40 minutes was a simple one.
“It was about closing out the game by checking, that was first and foremost, we wanted everybody to check and then if we checked well, we thought that we would end up with O-zone time and I liked both ends of the ice in the third period,” the coach said.
Pastrnak’s third goal, a backhand rip from the slot, came at 4:43 of the third. It was followed by a Jesper Boqvist tally 25 seconds later that extended the lead to 5-2 and completely took the wind out of the Senators’ sails.
“It was great. Very, very happy for our team because after two we were nowhere near our game, but we were up by one goal and it was important for us to recognize that we were leading by a goal at home going into the third,” Pastrnak said. “So, we made sure we’re going to keep playing on our toes, extend the lead, and don’t sit back. And I think we just did that [for] the first five minutes, [and] set the tempo for the rest of the period.”
New power-play weapon Justin Brazeau scored a pair of goals and righthanded defenseman Kevin Shattenkirk, playing on his opposite side, collected three assists. Shattenkirk has 17 helpers on the season.
“I can’t say enough [about Shattenkirk], because I mean I thought that fourth goal that extended the lead, he made two incredibly clever plays,” Montgomery said. “And he looked really good on his off side, defending and breaking pucks out, which is not easy. Breaking pucks out in the neutral zone, it’s not easy because you’re not naturally looking north, you’re looking to the middle, and he did a really good job managing the game.”
Pastrnak has 44 goals and 99 points as he closes in on his second straight 100-plus point campaign. His capper was the 345th of his career, passing Cam Neely for seventh on the franchise’s all-time list.
The Bruins improved to 41-14-15 and remain in the NHL’s catbird seat with 97 points, with the Rangers, one of their closest pursuers, poised to invade Boston Thursday night.
Somewhat lost in all the hubbub around the offensive outburst — and the bear, of course — was the play of Linus Ullmark, who made 30 saves on the way to his third straight win.
After a nondescript start to the first period that included a pair of speedy board/ glass repairs by the TD Garden pit crew (aka the Bull Gang), Pastrnak got things started.
The All-Star right winger started a breakout on the first one, taking the puck deep to Pavel Zacha, who swung around out of the corner and zipped it back to Matt Grzelcyk. The defenseman walked it to the top of the circle before letting a wrister go that Pastrnak tipped past a frozen Joonas Korpisalo at 8:23.
Just under three minutes later, Pasta was boiling again. He clipped an errant Senators relay at the Boston blue line and turned on the afterburners, breaking in alone on Korpisalo. Pastrnak toe-dragged the puck briefly before going to his backhand and slipping it past the Ottawa goalie, who got a piece, but not enough.
The Senators (28-34-4) broke through when Shane Pinto’s power-play one-timer hit Ullmark before slowly leaking by.
The Bruins’ struggling power play restored the two-goal lead when Brazeau buried a rebound of Shattenkirk’s blue-line bid. It was the kind of goal Montgomery was looking for when he plopped Brazeau at the net front on the second power-play unit.
It looked as though Boston would head to the final period with a two-goal lead, but Tkachuk sneaked one past Ullmark, setting the stage for the third-period craziness.