Bruins beat the hot Blues 4-2

Boston Bruins goalie Tim Thomas (30) celebrates with teammates Zdeno Chara (33) and Milan Lucic (17) after defeating the St. Louis Blues in an NHL hockey game, Wednesday, Feb. 22, 2012, in St. Louis. The Bruins defeated the Blues 4-2. (AP Photo/Tom Gannam)

The Bruins came to play tonight against one of the top teams in the Western Conference, the St. Louis Blues and managed to pull out a 4-2 win. David Krejci played his best game in a long time, showing speed, giving and taking hits, as he played an overall good game. Bruins coach Claude Julien did use the new Chris Kelly-Milan Lucic-David Krejci line and they scored two goals in the first period. Look for them to stay together while Nathan Horton is out of the lineup. It was a good team game tonight with lots of hard hitting action. Hopefully the Bruins continue to play as they did tonight.

In the first period, Brad Marchand scored his 20th goal of the season to give the Bruins a 1-0 lead. After that goal, Adam McQuaid dropped the gloves with Blues B.J. Crombeen and they had a good spirited fight with both guys landing some punches.

Adam McQuaid vs B.J. Crombeen

People call Jack Edwards a homer, he is but he's not the worst, and the Blues announcer may not be too far behind Jack, as during the fight on the Blues telecast, the announcer said Crombeen landed a punch that sent McQuaid down. I'm not sure what he was watching.

A few minutes later, Milan Lucic scored his 21st goal of the season to make it 2-0. The Blues though would come back as Chris Stewart and Ryan Reaves scored to tie the game. With 40 seconds left in the period, Chris Kelly scored his 15th goal of the season to make it 3-2 Bruins.

In the second period, the score remained the same as the Blues outplayed the Bruins.

In the third period, Brad Marchand had a breakaway chance, he faked a shot on Brian Elliott and went backhand scoring five-hole, his 21st goal of the season, making it 4-2 Bruins.

Tim Thomas played in net and made 30 saves on 32 shots. Thomas is now 25-12-0 with a 2.21 GAA and a .929 save percentage so far this season.

Game notes
The Bruins led the game in faceoff wins 29-28 and blocked shots 21-12. The Blues led the game in shots 32-19 and hits 25-23.

The Bruins and the Blues both went 0-for-1 on the power-play.

Chris Kelly and Milan Lucic both had 1 goal and 1 assist.

Brad Marchand and Chris Kelly both led the game in shots with 3.

Dennis Seidenberg led the Bruins with 5 blocked shots.

Zdeno Chara led the Bruins with 5 hits.

The Bruins fourth line had a bad night, as Gregory Campbell and Daniel Paille were both -2 while Shawn Thornton was -1. The NESN telecast said that Thornton was a little sick but still played.

In the third period, Julien didn't play Jordan Caron and Carter Camper much at all. Camper played in his first NHL game, getting 6:21 of ice time and going 5-3 in faceoffs.

Onto the next one
The Bruins are now 36-20-2 with 74 points (1st place in Northeast Division and 2nd place in the Eastern Conference.

The Bruins next game is on Friday at the Buffalo Sabres at 7:30pm ET. You remember the last game between these two teams, as there was a few fights as the Bruins got blown out 6-0. It should be an interesting game.