January 28, 2013; Raleigh, NC, USA; Boston Bruins defensemen
Zdeno Chara(33) is congratulated by teammates right wing
Tim Horton(18) and left wing
Milan Lucic(17) after his 1st period goal against he Carolina Hurricanes at the PNC center. Mandatory Credit: James Guillory-USA TODAY Sports
The Boston Bruins end their winless streak against the Hurricanes with a 5-3 win, their first win against the time since the 2010-11 season.
The Bruins came out strong in the first period scoring 2 quick goals, a shorthanded goal from Brad Marchand followed by a powerplay goal from Zdeno Chara opened the scoring for the Bruins. Jamie McBain scored a sneaky deflection goal to make it 2-1 toward the end of the first period.
Nathan Horton would add a beauty of a goal in the second period to bring Boston up 3-1. However when it looked like Boston was about to put it away, two nasty turn overs resulted in back to back goals from the Hurricanes from Jeff Skinner and Eric Staal would deadlock the Bruins and Canes 3-3.
David Krejci would add a third period GWG to make it 4-3 and an empty net PPG from Tyler Seguin completed the W for Boston.
The Bruins penalty kill is on it’s best streak since it was headlined by Brian Rolston and PJ Axelsson in 2001-02. The Bruins killed 7 powerplays in this game and brought their streak to 24 consecutive killed penalties so far this season. The Bruins scored their first short handed goal this year from Brad Marchand and production from the PK will definitely see a huge increase as they continue to dominate in 5-on-4 and 5-on-3 situations. Speaking of special teams, the Powerplay is finally coming together for Boston, with 2 for 4 on the man advantage against the Canes with the powerplay looking more and more focused and tight then previous games.
The Bruins and Hurricanes continued their tradition of physicality with a spirited tilt between Milan Lucic and Jay Harrison. Harrison edged Lucic well in the beginning but by the end it was all Lucic with Harrison’s jersey ending up pulled over his head. Lucic wasn’t the only one who dropped the gloves, the one time fighter Patrice Bergeron put Jeff Skinner in his place with a few pops in the jaw however were tied up by the stripes before Bergeron could do what he did to Josh Gorges and lay out a knock down. This game certainly sets the stage for a deeper rivalry to reform between this teams to rival the days of the Battle for New England.
Anton Khudobin got his first start of the season posting a GA of 3 , 29 saves on 32 shots, a .906 SV% and had a vintage Marty Turco moment trying to play the puck outside of the trapezoid which caused Boston to go on the PK early in the game. Khudobin certainly showed his flash as a goalie in this game, he played tremendous in his first start this year and despite the 3 goals against him tonight he can for sure handle himself as a back up and can be the go to man to cut the workload for Rask.
The Bruins will return to TD Garden, Tuesday January 29th to take on the New Jersey Devils and hope to continue their streak at home and continue to post a 0 in the regulation loss column.