Boston Bruins defeat Montreal Canadiens 8-6
Nathan Horton netted a goal and picked up four assists, as the Boston Bruins took down the Montreal Canadiens 8-6, at the TD Garden on Wednesday night.
Milan Lucic and Michael Ryder both lit the lamp twice for Boston, who have won four of their last five games, and extended their lead over the Canadiens in the Northeast Division to four points (69-65).
Adam McQuaid and Brad Marchand both also found the net, while Tim Thomas surrendered six goals on 33 shots, but still ended up on the winning side. Dennis Seidenberg notched another goal for the winners.
Max Pacioretty posted two goals while P.K. Subban and David Desharnais each scored a goal and had an assist for Montreal, who have dropped two consecutive games after winning three in a row. Brian Gionta also added a goal in the losing effort.
"It's always passionate and always emotional when we play each other," said Gionta. "Obviously today was a big game cause it was important points on the line. We just didn't do enough to win."
Carey Price was beaten for eight goals for the first time in his career on 34 shots.
The Bruins got on the board first for a 1-0 lead with nearly six and a half minutes left in the opening stanza. The goal came when Patrice Bergeron slipped a pass to Marchand on the left wing. Marchand then rushed to the slot and fired a backhander past
Price.
Twelve seconds later, Price blocked Horton's initial shot from the right wing, but the rebound trickled out in front and settled on Seidenberg's stick for a 2-0 lead.
Gionta then got Montreal on the board to cut the deficit in half at 2-1, just 25 seconds into the middle frame, but Subban tied the game at 2-2 on a power play in the ninth minute.
Boston got the lead back at 3-2 just one and half minutes later, as McQuaid snapped a wrist shot from between the circles into the net. However, Montreal knotted it again at 3-3 thanks to Yannick Weber's deflected shot 73 seconds later.
The Bruins made it a 4-3 game with eight and a half minutes left in the second period when Blake Wheeler threw a back pass to Ryder, who knocked a successful fore-hander into the net. Lucic then extended the Bruins lead to 5-3, when he converted a rebound
off Horton’s shot 59 seconds later.
On the next shift, Marchand drilled Montreal defenseman James Wisniewski with a hard but clean check into the boards. All 10 players on the ice then squared off in the Canadiens end, including Price and Thomas.
The Canadiens were granted a man advantage once everything was sorted, and they pulled back another goal to make it a 5-4 game, as Desharnais ripped a shot from the goal line which deflected off a Bruins stick and fluttered past the goalie.
However, Lucic recovered the Bruins two goal advantage at 6-4, with nearly five minutes to play in the second period. The goal was set up by David Krejci, who grabbed the puck and passed it to Lucic, who then hammered a short-handed wrist shot into the net.
Pacioretty then scored to get Montreal back into the game at 6-5 just seven minutes into the final frame. During a power play, he rifled a high wrist shot into the net. On the ensuing Bruins advantage, Ryder scored his second goal of the game to give Boston
a 7-5 lead midway through the third period, at the tail end of the 5-on-4 on a shot inside the right post.
Horton pushed the Bruins’ lead to 8-5 with a sizzling shot from the right circle with just five minutes left to play. After some late-game tussling between the teams, Pacioretty rounded off the scoring at 8-6, after scoring a 5-on-3 power-play goal.
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