Patrice Bergeron couldn’t have asked for a better response after his Boston Bruins were embarrassed earlier this week.
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Brett Connolly has had a woeful showing for the Bruins offensively this season, but he led the way with three helpers on Thursday.
With the Bruins in desperate need of a strong bounce-back game, the trio of Brad Marchand, Patrice Bergeron and Brett Connolly put forth a thoroughly dominant performance against the Winnipeg Jets, combining for three goals, seven points, 15 shots on goal and a plus-9 rating in a 6-2 Boston win.
Bergeron scored 1:38 into the game and again while Boston blew things open in the third period. He did all this while logging a mere 14:25 of ice time – a choice Julien made after the center scrapped with ex-teammate Blake Wheeler in his first fight in more than two years. He also has two postseason fights, according to the team.
QUOTE TO NOTE: “We talked about learning from that game, and putting it behind us as well”. Loui Eriksson, David Pastrnak and Jimmy Hayes also scored for the Bruins.
Bryan Little and Nikolaj Ehlers scored the Jets goals.
After the fight, Wheeler is just a goal short of the “Gordie Howe Hat Trick”, while Bergeron just needs an assist to complete the Gordie Trick for himself.
Tuukka Rask made 34 saves, with the majority of those saves made during the first half of the game.
Connor Hellebuyck started in goal for Winnipeg, but was replaced by Hutchinson after the Bruins led 3-2 at the first intermission.
Marchand, who has been one of the hottest players in the lead, broke free and beat Byfuglien for a breakaway with 1:15 left to give Boston their third lead of the first period. “Not only did we outscore them by a lot, I thought we just played a very sound game”, he said.
Fight No. 3: Tyler Myers and Bergeron go head-to-head One area you can’t question Bergeron is his courage. “At the end of the day we couldn’t get to a puck, couldn’t come up with the puck and when we did we couldn’t move it quick enough”.
Bergeron showed why he is considered one of the best players in the game with a terrific full-ice effort to give the B’s a 5-2 lead at 7:42 of the third.
Marchand, 27, a native of Halifax, Nova Scotia, has scored in five straight games, and has 11 goals in his last 11 contests.
Winnipeg coach Paul Maurice pulled Hutchinson with 4:57 remaining and with his team having managed just two shots on net to that point in the period, but Hayes scored an empty-netter just nine seconds later. Bergeron’s 20th goal this season, the seventh time he’s hit the 20-goal mark, ended a five-game goalless streak.
Winnipeg responded with Little’s goal at 3:29. Wheeler took a rebound and quickly passed it across the front of the net to a surging Little, who shot the puck into a wide-open net for his 17th goal.
Ehlers scored on the power play just under a minute later, then Marchand regained the lead.
First period 18:45: B. Marchand (26) assisted by B. “Everyone came to play tonight, and from the drop of the puck, we played a really good game”. “We just got into it a little bit and that was the end of it. I have a lot of respect for the guy”.
Winnipeg outshot the Bruins 18-11 in the first.
Boston didn’t get its first shot on goal in the scoreless second period until just over the midway point of the period.
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The road trip will get more hard from here, as the B’s will face a tricky back-to-back of Minnesota on Saturday and Detroit on Sunday.
