Boston Bruins center Gregory Campbell, left, celebrates his goal with teammates Shawn Thornton, middle, and Brad Marchand (63) as Montreal Canadiens goalie Carey Price (31) and Canadiens center Tomas Plekanec (14), of the Czech Republic, react at right during the first period of an NHL hockey game in Boston Thursday, March 24, 2011. (AP Photo/Elise Amendola)
Before the game there was lots of talk about Mark Recchi's comments. To all those hockey people, hockey bloggers like Puck Daddy, and Montreal Canadiens players who didn't know why Recchi said what he said. Well Recchi was basically getting the pressure off of Zdeno Chara. And it worked. Chara had 3 assists and was a +3. To all of those who were getting on Recchi for his comments, you've been punked.
"I took pressure off my captain for one day," Recchi said. "He deserved it. He earned it."
"It says a lot because I know what kind of player he is," added Bruins coach Claude Julien. "I knew exactly what he was doing. You don't have to speak. He's 43 years old, he's a big boy. He can answer for himself. I don't think I need to coach him on any of that stuff."
"When you see a guy with that kind of experience say something like that, you know what he's doing. So, there was nothing to be said. Their focus was on the game. He had to say what he had to say for whatever reason. That was something where I didn't need to ask him that question because I knew exactly what he was doing."
Source
"Well I have to be honest with you guys. I wanted to take the heat off Zee [Zdeno Chara] for a day and I'm a big boy. And I think anyone who knows me, knows that I have great respect for the Montreal organization, I played five years there. I have great respect for Doctor [David] Mulder, the medical staff there. I had a great five years there. I took the pressure off of Zee. In twenty-two years, I've respected all my teammates, all the players I play against. My record has shown that. For twenty-two years, I took the pressure off of Zee for one day, I'm a big boy, I can handle it. I have nothing but great things to say about the Montreal organization, I had five great years there. And it's still an unfortunate situation it all happened. We all hope Max [Pacioretty] gets a full recovery here soon and we know he's well on his way. And like I said, this is something that I believe in twenty-two years I've been very respectful to players and opponents throughout. So that should be the end of it really."
Source
In the first period, Johnny Boychuk scored his 2nd goal of the season to make it 1-0. Gregory Campbell scored his 11th goal of the season to make it 2-0. Nathan Horton scored a power-play goal, after getting high sticked from what looked to be an on-purpose stick swing by Tomas Plekanec at Horton's head. Nothing new for Plekanec, that's what he does when you hit him along with diving. That was Horton's 21st goal of the season.
In the second period no scoring happened. With 17 seconds left in the period, Campbell dropped the gloves with Paul Mara and had an uneventful fight. A little earlier Recchi (2 minutes) and Mara (4 minutes) got roughing penalties so this could have been Campbell sending a message to Mara for that.
In the third period, Horton scored his 22nd goal of the season to make it 4-0 on a beautiful wrist shot roofing the puck over Price's glove. Adam McQuaid scored his 3rd goal of the season to make it 5-0 (thanks Eller for the tip in). Price was then pulled and former Bruin Alex Auld came into the net for Montreal. Tomas Kaberle scored his first goal as a Bruin, his 4th goal of the season to make it 6-0. Campbell would later score a shorthanded 5 on 3 goal on a breakaway to make it 7-0, his 12th goal of the season. Tyler Seguin would have had a goal at the end of the game but the clock ran out.
Tim Thomas was in net and made 24 saves on 24 shots he faced. Thomas is now 31-10-8, with a 2.02 GAA, and a .938 save percentage.
The Bruins led the game in shots 41-24 and faceoff wins 38-25. Montreal led the game in hits 25-11. Both teams had 13 blocked shots.
Some notes from the game
Punk of the game goes to Tomas Plekanec for two-handing Horton in the face with his stick after Horton hit him against the boards. I'm hoping the NHL takes a look at that, it's a stick swinging incident, but I'm going to guess that they won't.
Gregory Campbell had two goals, was +2 and had a fight.
Nathan Horton, Milan Lucic, and David Krejci were all a +3. Horton with 2 goals, and Lucic and Krejci each had 3 assists.
Brad Marchand had a big hit on Scott Gomez which got him a 2-minute roughing penalty in the third period.
Onto the next one
The Bruins next game is on Saturday against the New York Rangers in Boston. It's a 1pm EST game.
Comments