Zdeno Chara recorded his first career hat trick and Tim Thomas earned with league-leading 7th shutout of the season as the Bruins dominated the Carolina Hurricanes 7-0 in a Martin Luther King Jr. Day matinee at TD Garden.
Mark Stuart, who missed the last 18 games with a broken finger, gave the Bruins a 1-0 lead 7:56 into the game. Nathan Horton carried the puck deep behind the Carolina net and out to the left circle before passing the puck back to Staurt at the point. Stuart unloaded a hard slapper through traffic that beat Cam Ward for his first goal of the season.
Milan Lucic appeared to extend the lead to 2-0 just over a minute after Stuart's strike, but the goal was immediately waived off due to a slashing call on Zdeno Chara well behind the play. Chara gave Tuomo Ruutu a slash after Ruutu took a run at rookie defenseman Steven Kampfer.
After serving his 2 minutes, Zdeno Chara was able to redeem himself for his undisciplined penalty. McQuaid's clearing pass to Chara (fresh out of the box) created a 2-on-1 with Chara and Recchi. Chara got the Carolina defender to commit to the pass and Chara snapped off a shot that beat Cam Ward for the 2-0 lead at 11:28 of the third period. The goal led Carolina Head Coach Paul Maurice to pull his starting goalie after giving up 2 goals on 5 shots. Justin Peters replaced Ward in the Carolina cage.
With the Bruins on a 5-on-3 power play, Zdeno Chara got his second goal of the game to give the B's a 3-0 first period lead with 4:02 left in the opening period. The Bruins moved the puck well on the 2-man advantage to get Chara open for a one-timer from the right circle. Patrice Bergeron had the puck at the left point and worked it down to David Krejci in the left wing corner. Krejci saw a seam and sent a diagonal pass to Big Z at the top of the right circle.
Gregory Campbell extended the Bruins' lead to 4-0 with his 5th goal of the season with 4:09 left in the second period. Shawn Thornton threw the puck towards the net with a backhander from the top of the right circle with Campbell going hard to the net. Campbell got a piece of the bouncing puck with a backhand side of his blade to deflect it past Justin Peters.
13 seconds later, Patrice Bergeron found the back of the net to give the Bruins a 5-0 lead. Bergeron's shot from the left circle beat Peters on the short side for his 15th goal of the season.
Michael Ryder set up at the top of the crease and deflected Dennis Seidenberg's shot from the point past Justin Peters 2:24 into the third period to make it 6-0. The goal is Ryder's 14th on the season.
Zdeno Chara took advantage of a power play that resulted from a Jussi Jokinen roughing minor to record his first career hat trick. Chara unleashed a hard, low slapper from the slot that beat Peters with 5:56 left in the game and the hats rained down on the Garden ice.
Patrick Dwyer took a run at Mark Stuart with just over 5 minutes left in the game, which drew the attention of Adam McQuaid. Troy Brodie intercepted McQuaid by the bench before he got to Dwyer and dropped the gloves. McQuaid unloaded a few haymakers on Brodie. McQuaid was given a fight instigator and misconduct for sticking up for Stuart.
Notes:
- Mark Recchi moved into 7th place on the NHL's all-time games played list with 1,616 games.
- Cam Ward passed Arturs Irbe for most games played in Hurricanes franchise history with 310 games.
- Claude Julien shuffled the lines again today:
Ryder - Savard - Horton
Lucic - Krejci - Seguin
Marchand - Bergeron - Recchi
Wheeler - Campbell - Thornton
- There was a scary moment in the first period when Boychuk lost his helmet and then was hit with a skate on his unprotected head. Boychuk was fine and was able to stay in the game.
- Scruffy Wallace of the Dropkick Murphys was at The Garden taking in today's game.
- Patrice Bergeron was named the NHL's Second Star of the Week. Bergeron finished the week with 7 points (4-3-7) in 4 games.
- Fun Fact: Besides being a champion figure skater, Canes rookie Jeff Skinner was also in "Death to Smoochy". H/T NHL.com web producer Michael Blinn for this info.
- Zdeno Chara is the 4th Bruins defenseman to record a hat trick. Bobby Orr, Ray Bourque, and Glen Wesley are the others. Wesley was the last B's blueliner to accomplish the feat in 1993.
- Jack Edwards accused Paul Maurice of instructing his players to head hunt and "send messages" late in blowouts.
- The B's out-shot the Canes 38-31
- Marc Savard, Mark Stuart, and Adam McQuaid all finished the game +3.
- Adam McQuaid recorded his first multi-point game (2 assists).
- There are rumors circulating about a possible trade between the Bruins and Islanders. According to John Buccigross, Matt Moulson's name has been involved. Bob McKenzie of TSN is now shooting down the rumors about Moulson to Boston. Who knows? Stay tuned.
- The Bruins and Hurricanes will be right back at it tomorrow night when the two teams take the ice in Raleigh, NC.
- For more on today's game, check out Canes Country
"Maybe people would know who he is if he didn't play in Mayberry"
Mike Milbury on Eric Staal
"It’s well deserved. Earlier this year he struggled scoring. And he’s getting it back. Those were three good goals. I’m liking where his shot’s at and the positions he’s getting himself in to take those shots the past few games, and it’s paying off. So I’m very happy for him. He got two early, and I was hoping he’d get that third. Of course nobody wanted to say anything. It’s kinda like shut out; you don’t say it, but I was very happy when he actually…he finished that hat trick off."
Tim Thomas on Zdeno Chara's hat trick
"I thought our flow was pretty good. We came to play. I thought Thomas [Tim] made some pretty good saves early on and we gave up two. From that point on we just got smoked. We get another chance at it tomorrow and we are going to be ready."
Carolina Hurricanes forward Eric Staal
"It felt good. I mean … a little nervous beforehand because you don’t know what to expect. I think… fortunate enough to get that goal early and it kind of helped me relax."
Mark Stuart on returning to the lineup after missing 18 games
"I’m not quite sure what you are talking about. No, personally I’m out there competing as hard as I can. There is no quitting in myself. I just to out there when I am called upon and keep trying to do my best."
Carolina Hurricanes goalie Justin Peters when asked if he "felt helpless when the goals began to snowball"
"They didn’t blow the whistle until after the goal. They called it off. It was funny the Ref that was down there in front of the two didn’t call the penalty but the Ref that was beside me decided to call it. Like I said, it is disheartening because I haven’t scored in a while after being hot for the first 30 games but you have to build off of it. It was a good stride and I have to get my game going from there."
Milan Lucic on his goal in the first period being waived off
"Well, you know, a number of times you come close. You have two goals and you hit a post or you get some really good scoring chances, but you know, like I said, I wasn’t really thinking about scoring a hat trick I was trying to make the right play and, like I said, it just happened. The guy went down, David [Krejci] gave me the puck, I shot it. It really wasn’t that great of a shot, it just went through. It was hard enough to went through. Personally, I’m just happy obviously, we won the game. You know, you always kind of think about it would be nice to have that kind of a game in your career and to say you know, hey I’ve done it, I have a hat trick, but you know, for myself, you know, it took 14 or 15 years so I’m not expecting another one anytime soon."
Zdeno Chara on his first career hat trick
"He didn’t think I had it in the bag, he thought that club was left at the golf store."
"You know I’m very unselfish. The linesman was surprised, I was like {expletive] you must not watch practice I guess, I do it all the time."Shawn Thornton on what one of the linesmen said to him about his backhand shot/pass that lead to Greg Campbell's goal
"Well I’m not going to [expletive] answer that. We have a good team, we’ll take this victory and enjoy it until midnight and focus on tomorrow’s game after that, and I’m not looking any farther than tomorrow."
Shawn Thornton after someone asked if the Bruins have a shot at the Stanley Cup
Editor's Note: If anyone knows who the media professional that thought that was an appropriate question to ask on January 17th, please let me know.
"Well we all know Stuey [Mark Stuart]…it’s been a little that he’s been out. So in that situation you kind of have to jump in there for your teammate. We all know Stuey’s [Mark Stuart] not going to back down so it was just kind of something that you need to do. It kind of puts him in a tough spot, so I guess someone had to jump in there for him."
Adam McQuaid on his third period fight with Troy Brodie
"Well, yeah, I think it’s pretty obvious a guy’s coming off a broken hand, I think anybody would have jumped in for him and that’s what Mac [McQuaid] did. He saw the situation and so he just went in and defended his teammate. I think if it was anybody in any situation like that, any teammate would do that kind of stuff. So maybe a little stiff on the aggressor, he just pushed him and the other guy dropped the gloves, but at that time in the game, I think referees want whole control of the game."
Claude Julien on how Adam McQuaid responded to stick up for Mark Stuart