Heinen, B’s slaughter Hab-less visitors
All but two B’s skaters make scoresheet
The Bruins flexed their front line skill in their big win over the Colorado Avalanche on Thursday.
On Saturday against the Montreal Canadiens, the B’s threw their surging depth scoring at their ancient rivals to run away from the Habs in the third period in a 9-4 win at the Garden.
Danton Heinen notched his first career hat trick (Nos. 6, 7 and 8) and 16 of the 18 skaters found their way onto the scoresheet.
“We knew that’s how we were going to have to win this year,” said captain Brad Marchand, who had a goal and an assist. “Obviously, (David Pastrnak) is an exception. he produces every night but we win by committee here and that’s how you need to win in the playoffs. That’s what we’ve tried to build with the management and coaching staff. You build with your whole group. When you have everyone chipping in, it’s hard to defend. That’s showing right now.”
It was once thought that the B’s would have to lean on their goaltending and defense, but the offensive production has been noteworthy. They are now up too seventh in the league in goal scoring.
“It talks about the evolution of our team and growing offensively,” said coach Jim Montrgomery. “I don’t think we ever envisioned having a night like this and over the course of 82 games there are some outliers. But we’ve been seeing this coming for four games. We’re hanging on to pucks and we wind up with high Grade A chances. There were numerous tonight.”
With the game in hand and Heinen with two goals in his ledger, Montgomery put him out for a late power play. And even though everyone in the building knew why, Morgan Geekie still found him for the hat trick goal.
“That was nice of him. He knew I had two there and it was a great play by Geeks. It was nice that everyone tried to get it for me,” said Heinen, who was a training camp tryout.
It was clear from the start that the Habs at least wanted to put up a fight, and for a while they did. In the opening minutes, the defensive tandem of David Savard and Mike Matheson each landed a big hit on Pastrnak on the same shift.
The Habs took the first lead of the game at 9:18 on the power play when Cole Caufield beat Linus Ullmark (in his first start since suffering a lower body injury on Jan. 9) from the side of the net after Matheson made a great play to keep the puck in at the blue line.
The B’s answered back at 12:47 on a nice give-and-go between Brandon Carlo and Trent Frederic, with Frederic dishing at back to the defenseman for the redirection goal (No. 3) in his first game back from a concussion.
But the B‘s were playing a little looser than they had been recently and the Habs regained the lead off the rush with Joshua Roy connecting with Joel Armia for the goahead goal at 15:00.
The B’s, however, answered with a pair of goals in 55 seconds.
The first one was derived from good, hard work along the boards. James van Riemsdyk knocked a puck loose from a Hab defender along the end boards for Jake DeBrusk, who simply took the puck to the side of the net and jammed it through goalie Sam Montembeault at 18:10. It was the 11th goal of the season for the percolating DeBrusk.
Before the period was done, Heinen gave the B’s their first lead of the game when he redirected a beautiful slap pass from Matt Grzelcyk from the left point. The B’s could not shake the Habs in the back-and-forth second, however.
With Charlie Coyle in the box for high-sticking, the Habs made it 2-for-2 on the power play, with Matheson beating Ullmark with a high slot shot at 6:16.
Montreal was feeling it, especially after Michael Pezzetta took another run at Pastrnak that was a hair late but allowed. Tempers eventually boiled over into a Trent Frederic-Josh Anderson scrap, for which Anderson got the extra two for roughing.
The B’s couldn’t cash in on the power play, but again they blitzed the Habs with a pair of goals in less than a minute.
Heinen scored his second of the game when Jesper Boqvist sprung him for a 2-on-1 with Matt Poitras. Heinen elected to take the shot and sizzled a far-side wrister 10:46.
Then 49 seconds later, Pastrnak made a great pass to Coyle (No. 16) from the high slot that the centerman deflected past Montembeault.
But if the B’s thought they’d put Montreal away, they were mistaken. After the B’s failed to clear the zone on several chances, Brendan Gallagher stuck with a puck in front of the net and managed to get his second chance shot through Ullmark’s pads at 13:19.
The B’s finally made it a laugher in the third. Pastrnak gave the B’s their twogoal lead again at 1:26 of the period on a partial break. Wearing defenseman Jayden Struble on his left hip, Pastrnak got one shot off on Montembeault and then scored on his own rebound for his 30th goal of the season, the seventh time he’s reached that plateau.
That finally broke the Habs. The B’s pushed the lead to three on a momentous goal from Marchand, his 20th of the year off a Coyle feed. It marked his 11th straight 20-goal season, pushing ahead of Patrice Bergeron and Johnny Bucyk.
Pavel Zacha made it a laugher with his 10th of the season and 100th career goal before Montgomery put Heinen on the ice for a power play. Geekie found him for the hatty and the chapeau shower commenced.