After a wholly unsatisfactory game against the Maple Leafs on Tuesday, the Bruins owed their fans some good times. And on Thursday, the B’s made good on the debt, with the help of a hapless New Jersey Devils team.
After Tuukka Rask got the crowd primed with his first Garden appearance since retiring by doing the ceremonial puck drop, the B’s provided some good old fashioned entertainment with hits, fights and goals, goals and more goals, including one for a local boy making his NHL debut.
When it was all over, the B’s had themselves a nice, stat-padding 8-1 victory.
The B’s took a 2-1 lead into the first intermission after a high energy first period.
First, Matt Grzelcyk gave the B’s a 1-0 lead just 57 seconds in when he picked off a rim attempt and he fired a seeing-eye shot that made it through Devils’ goalie Nico Daws, who would have a rough night.
With a couple of players making their Bruin debuts, things got nasty. First, Josh Brown endeared himself to the Garden crowd by dropping the gloves with Mason Geertsen just 2:56 into his Bruin career, landing and taking a few blows in a bout that pleased the fans.
Then the ever-rambunctious Miles Wood drilled Charlie McAvoy into the end boards on a heavy but clean hit, causing Mike Reilly – himself making a return to the lineup for the first time since since Hampus Lindholm came aboard – to jump the Devil and earn an extra two for roughing.
Meanwhile, Marc McLaughlin looked NHL ready with a high energy few shifts and a hit on his first time on the ice in his NHL debut. Another hiighlight was still to come for him.
The Devils drew even when, after the B’s had just killed of a Lindholm penalty, Jack Hughes beat Linus Ullmark with a sublime, bad angle shot that beat Ullmark by his ear on the shortside at 11:02.
But the B’s went into the break with a lead thanks to a mistake by Daws. Patrice Bergeron threw a long distance puck on net, perhaps hoping to just get an offensive zone faceoff. But Daws blockered the puck into the deserted slot, where Jake DeBrusk swooped in to grab it and beat Daws on a move to his forehand for his 18th of the year at 16:09.
Then the B’s dropped the roof on the Devils in the second period with six unanswered goals.
Erik Haula stretched the B’s lead to 3-1 at 2:22 on a too-easy play. David Pastrnak collected a puck behind the net and was allowed to circle out front unmolested to take a clean shot that Daws stopped. He gave up a fat rebound, however, and Haula was there in the low slot to pop it home for his 10th of the season.
The B’s made it 4-1 at 6:33 on a hyperactive shift from DeBrusk. At the end of it, he found himself alone with the puck at the left side of the net. On his backhand, he did not have a high percentage shot so he found Brad Marchand in the high slot and Marchand notched his 29th.
After Patrice Bergeron deflected home a Pastrnak shot for his 18th goal of the season, a power-play tally, that was it for Daws, who gave way for Jon Gillies.
Gillies received the same treatment. Before the new netminder had broken a sweat, Reilly set up Marchand for a one-timer and his 30th of the season, making it his fifth career 30-goal season.
But there was more fun to be had, and perhaps the biggest roar of the night. With the Devils pressing in the offensive zone, Trent Frederic broke out on a 2-on-1 with McLaughlin. Frederic was looking pass all the way, but it didn’t matter. He found McLaughlin and the the Billerica boy buried past Gillies’ glove on a nice one-timer.
Before the period was out, Taylor Hall scored his 16th goal off Pastrnak’s third helper of the night.
About the only thing that did not go right for the B’s was Marchand getting his hat trick goal getting called back for an obvious offsides, causing a few fans to lose their chapeaus for no reason.
