Montreal beats Boston 4-3 in spirited game

BOSTON, MA - MARCH 3: Sandy Hook Elementary School teacher Natalie Hammond does the ceremonial puck drop before the game of the Boston Bruins against the Montreal Canadiens at the TD Garden on March 3, 2013 in Boston, Massachusetts. (Photo by Steve Babineau/NHLI via Getty Images)

The best rivalry in hockey continued Sunday night with a battle between the Boston Bruins and Montreal Canadiens. It got heated at times and there were a few fights, but Montreal would come out on top and win 4-3.

These two teams won't meet again until March 27th.

Quick game summary
In the first period, Montreal's Tomas Plekanec scored a power-play goal, making it 1-0. Less than a minute later, Bruins Tyler Seguin scored his 5th goal of the season to tie the game 1-1. Only 16 seconds later, Montreal's David Desharnais scored to make it 2-1 Montreal.

BOSTON, MA - MARCH 03: Johnny Boychuk #55 of the Boston Bruins grabs David Desharnais #51 of the Montreal Canadiens after the whistle during a game at the TD Garden on March 3, 2013 in Boston, Massachusetts. (Photo by Alex Trautwig/Getty Images)

In the second period, Bruins Patrice Bergeron scored his 5th goal of the season to tie the game 2-2. Later, Bruins Dougie Hamilton scored his 2nd goal of the season, making it 3-2 Bruins. Bruins Milan Lucic and Montreal's Brandon Prust dropped the gloves and had another good fight with Lucic getting the decision. This is the third time they have fought each other in the NHL. Shortly after the Lucic-Prust fight, Montreal's Alexei Emelin (who plays very similar to the hated old-time nemesis Ulf Samuelsson as he'll cheapshot you and talk but won't fight unless he's forced into it) gave Tyler Seguin a cross-check to the ribs, and broke his stick doing it too. Seguin went down in pain and no penalty was called, so Zdeno Chara went after Emelin, instigating a fight and getting in a few uppercuts before the linesmen saved Emelin's life.

In the third period, Montreal's Max Pacioretty scored to tie the game 3-3. Later, Montreal's David Desharnais scored to make it 4-3 Montreal.

Game notes
Tuukka Rask played in net for the Bruins and made 22 saves on 26 shots. Rask is now 11-2-2 with a 1.97 GAA and a .928 save percentage this season.

The Bruins led the game in shots 34-26, hits 30-24 and faceoff wins 32-19. The Canadiens led the game in blocked shots 20-14. The Bruins went 0-for-2 on the power-play while the Canadiens went 1-for-5.

Tyler Seguin led the Bruins with 5 shots. Zdeno Chara led the Bruins with 5 hits. Dennis Seidenberg led the Bruins with 3 blocked shots.

Player notes
Chris Bourque was scratched and Jay Pandolfo was in the lineup.

After the game
Bruins coach Claude Julien was not happy with some of the diving going on in the game and let the media know about it.

Claude Julien press conference after the game, as he's sick and tired of Canadiens embellishment

"The frustrating part is that you end up with 17 minutes in the penalty box when you should have been on the power play. It's as simple as that," Julien said. "It's frustrating because tonight, as everybody saw, there was a lot of embellishment and this is embarrassing for our game, embellishing. Right now, they've got over 100 power plays so far and it's pretty obvious why. We're trying to clean that out of our game and it's got to be done soon.

"It's not about tonight. It's about the game and the embellishment embarrasses our game, and we need to be better at that because it was pretty obvious when P.K. [Subban] gets hit, he throws himself into the glass and holds his head. You know what? If we start calling those penalties for embellishment, maybe teams will stop doing it, but until we take charge of that, it's going to be an issue."
Source

Onto the next one
The Bruins are now 14-3-2 with 30 points and in second place in the Northeast Division, behind the Montreal Canadiens (who have 32 points and have played three more games than the Bruins). The next game for the Bruins is on Tuesday at the Washington Capitals at 7pm ET.