Bruins beat Senators 7-3 in spirited game

Ottawa Senators @ Boston Bruins game recap video, on December 29, 2015.

The second game in a home-and-home with the Ottawa Senators had a feisty ending to a hard-fought 7-3 win by the Bruins. The next meeting between these two teams is on January 9th. I expect Bruins Brad Marchand to get some kind of punishment for going low on Senators Mark Borowiecki.

Quick game summary
In the first period, Bruins Jimmy Hayes scored his 6th goal of the season, making the score 1-0 Bruins. Later, Senators Chris Neil scored, tying the game 1-1. Later, Bruins Patrice Bergeron scored his 13th goal of the season, a power-play goal, making the score 2-1 Bruins.

In the second period, Bruins Matt Beleskey scored his 6th goal of the season, a power-play goal, making the score 3-1 Bruins. Later, for some dumb reason Senators Mark Borowiecki took some shots at Bruins captain Zdeno Chara which didn't sit well with the big guy. They dropped the gloves and Chara rag-dolled Borowiecki down to the ice. Borowiecki is lucky Chara didn't throw any punches when he had the chance to unload on him. Later, Senators Mika Zibanejad scored, making the score 3-2.

In the third period, Bruins Patrice Bergeron scored his 14th goal of the season, a power-play goal, making the score 4-2 Bruins. Less than two minutes later, Senators Mike Hoffman scored, making the score 4-3. Later, Bruins Jimmy Hayes scored his 7th goal of the season, making the score 5-3 Bruins. Less than a minute later, Bruins Matt Beleskey scored his 7th goal of the season, making the score 6-3 Bruins. With less than a minute left in the game, Senators Max McCormick went after Bruins Landon Ferraro for no reason and got the better of Ferraro, who isn't a fighter. After the next faceoff there was more chippy play starting with Senators Dave Dziurzynski taking a run at Bruins Kevan Miller, which then led to Bruins Adam McQuaid dropping the gloves with Senators Chris Neil and Bruins Zac Rinaldo dropping the gloves with Senators Dave Dziurzynski. The McQuaid-Neil bout didn't have much action, but both looked to face-rake each other (earlier in the game Neil gave McQuaid a stick between the legs). In the Rinaldo-Dziurzynski fight, Rinaldo put a beating on his opponent. After all the penalties were handed out, with less than a second left in the game, Bruins Jimmy Hayes scored his 8th goal of the season, a power-play goal, making the score 7-3 Bruins.

Landon Ferraro vs Max McCormick, Adam McQuaid vs Chris Neil and Zac Rinaldo vs Dave Dziurzynski

Game notes
Tuukka Rask played in net and made 29 saves on 32 shots. Rask is now 14-9-3 with a 2.41 GAA and a .918 save percentage this season.

The Bruins led the game in shots 37-32, faceoff wins 36-32 and blocked shots 19-17. The Senators led the game in hits 36-28. The Bruins went 4-for-7 on the power-play while the Senators went 0-for-4.

Loui Eriksson, Patrice Bergeron and Matt Beleskey led the Bruins with 5 shots each. Kevan Miller led the Bruins with 6 hits. Adam McQuaid led the Bruins with 6 blocked shots.

Colin Miller, Tyler Randell and Zach Trotman were scratched and did not play.

Onto the next one
The Bruins are now 20-12-4 with 44 points this season. The next game for the Bruins is the Winter Classic on Friday, January 1st at Gillette Stadium, at 1pm ET and on NBC.