There was no suspense in the third period of this game as the Bruins left little room for it in the 6-2 win over the previously undefeated Toronto Maple Leafs Thursday night at TD Garden.
Four different players had three-point nights to boost the confidence in the locker room and try and help the consistency that coach Claude Julien has been trying to instill in the irregular until.
Once again, the Bruins allowed the first goal of the game just 7:29 into the game, when David Steckel wristed a filthy shot past Tim Thomas, drawing first blood.
However, that lead didn't last long, and the Bruins followed up with three goals of their own in the first period, two of which were on the power play.
Nathan Horton scored the first one with 9:28 left in the first period, off a rebounded Zdeno Chara shot. That was Horton's second goal in three games, and it tied the game at one a piece.
Chara then kept the game rolling, scoring his own power play goal at 16:05, one-timing his shot from the right circle over Toronto netminder Jonas Gustavsson. Chris Kelly made it three just a minute later, pounding the puck in after the third attempt in front of the net.
"Yeah, I felt pretty good," Gustavsson said. "I mean, we know they were going to come out hard so I was prepared for a lot of shots, but I guess they got a couple of rebounds there. So they got a two-goal lead, but that’s the way it is sometimes."
The Bruins slowed down a bit in the second period, with neither team putting up nor yielding a goal. But that's not to say neither team had any chances.
Tim Thomas came up big for the Bruins, stopping a breakaway chance from Mikhail Grabovski who was just coming out of the penalty box. The Bruins defense was caught off guard, and Grabovski had only Thomas to stop him. Luckily for the Bruins, they have a Vezina Trophy Winner on their team.
"Yeah. It was 4-on-3 then 4-on-4 then 5-on-4 and I lost track of how many people were coming out of the box, so I didn’t bang my stick to give my D any warning," Thomas said. "I kind of helped cause the breakaway, so I had extra motivation to stop that breakaway. I just really wanted to stop that one because I had kind of made a mistake beforehand."
Boston continued with the onslaught, putting up three more goals from Lucic, Bergeron and Seguin, while Toronto's Grabovski netted his second of the season.
"I just thought we looked more like our team tonight, again," head coach Claude Julien said. "We did that in Chicago, and I said the same thing. We’ve kind of been hit and miss so far this year as we come up with a good effort. I think right now the biggest challenge is to be able to follow that up Saturday with the same kind of effort."