Boston Bruins Go To Montreal, Beat Canadiens 3-1

Boston Bruins captain Zdeno Chara may be getting older, but his hands were as sharp as ever on Wednesday night. His hand-eye coordination set Loui Eriksson up for a break-away to give Bruins their first goal to tie the game. Boston would roll to a victory from then on.

Deep in his own defensive zone, Chara swung his stick like a baseball bat, knocking the puck up-ice. Eriksson latched on to it and did the rest on his own.

“Zee [Chara] made a heck of a play on that first goal and that got us going,” said goaltender Tuukka Rask, who presumably had a good view of Chara’s swing. “That kind of caught them off guard after that and we scored a couple of quick ones.”

The forward on the other end of the pass, however, had no idea what happened deep in his own zone. “I didn’t see that,” Eriksson said. “Good play by him then. It was a late shift for me but I was able to find some room to get a breakaway. I didn’t really see what happened.”

Forty-two seconds later, Landon Ferraro scored what would eventually be the game winner past Mike Condon‘s blocker. At that point, the momentum had completely shifted. “All of a sudden the control of the game came to our side,” Chara said. “We got more jump from that and we were feeling better after those two goals. You could tell by our forecheck.”

Patrice Bergeron also added an insurance goal; it was his 576th point as a Bruin, moving him Milt Schmidt for 11th on the franchise scoring list.

 

Photo: Zdeno Chara #33 of the Boston Bruins celebrates with his teammates after scoring against the Calgary Flames during an NHL game at Scotiabank Saddledome on December 4, 2015 in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. (Photo by Derek Leung/Getty Images)