It took a long time before the puck dropped this afternoon, from 3:00 PM, the Boston Bruins celebrated officially turning 100, but when the puck dropped, they were ready to go and got down to business.
The Montreal Canadiens held it together for 11 minutes, but then, the Bruins turned it up a notch. There was a miscommunication in the Habs zone, which led to Charlie McAvoy walking in, wrapping around the net and opening the score. While the defensive zone assignment were missed, the fact Cayden Primeau was completely deported to his right and had no idea where his net was made it easy for the blueliner to score.
𝒞𝒽𝒶𝓇𝓁𝒾𝑒 𝑀𝒸𝒜𝓋𝑜𝓎 𝒹𝑒𝓁𝒾𝓋𝑒𝓇𝓈 𝓌𝒾𝓉𝒽 𝒶 𝒹𝒶𝓃𝒹𝓎 𝓇𝓊𝓈𝒽 𝓊𝓅 𝓉𝒽𝑒 𝓈𝒽𝑒𝑒𝓉 𝓉𝑜 𝒷𝓇𝑒𝒶𝓀 𝓉𝒽𝑒 𝒾𝒸𝑒. pic.twitter.com/mQP0M3mMEE
— Boston Bruins (@NHLBruins) December 1, 2024
As has often been the case this season, the opening goal shook the Canadiens and just over a minute later, David Pastrnak beat him up high to make it 2-0. That was not going to settle anyone’s nerves, and 15 seconds later Charlie Coyle found the back of the net. At 3-0, Martin St-Louis called a timeout to stop the hemorrhage, something he didn’t do when his team collapsed an gave up five goals in a period against the Vegas Golden Knights, and it worked.
Primeau was still in net for the start of the second and there’s no doubt the Canadiens were hoping to get a fresh start. Nikita Zadorov gave them a golden opportunity, being assessed a two-minute delay of game penalty, but things didn’t go as planned.
Mike Matheson was back on the first wave of the power play, taking over from Lane Hutson, and the veteran coughed up the puck to McAvoy who took off and promptly deked out Primeau to give the Bruins a 4-0 lead. 38 seconds into the second frame, things had taken yet another turn for the worst.
Things didn’t unravel like in the first period though and five minutes later, Arber Xhekaj joined in the attack, skating for the side and throwing the puck in front before going behind the net. The puck bounced off right winger Cole Caufield and snuck by Jeremy Swayman. A 15th goal on the season for the sniper, and a fourth consecutive game with a goal. The score remained 4-1 at the end of 40 minutes.
The final stanza started exactly like the previous one, when Coyle scored his second of the game just 21 seconds in. The Habs fought right back though,…