There were two things that came out of yesterday's 4-1 win over Buffalo. One: Riley Smith played one of his best games as a Bruin, scoring twice to boost his season goals total of 11 and two: the Bruins refused to be beaten at their own game, standing up for themselves even in the absence of their enforcer, Shawn Thornton.
This second leg of the Bruin's first home and home series of the season will undoubtedly be remembered for that willingness to stand up for one’s self and more particularly, Patrice Bergeron's willingness to stand up for himself. Nearly 3 quarters of the way through the second period of Saturday night's game, Patrice Bergeron found himself mucking around with Sabers giant, Tyler Myers as the two slid locked up with one another towards Sabers goaltender, Ryan Miller. As they came to a halt a few feet to the left of Miller, Myers made an attempt to hinder Bergeron's movement into a shooting position by attempting to lock his body and stick against Bergeron's lower body. However where he intended to or not, Myers made this play while he had his stick stuck between Bergeron's skates. As he spun around to block Bergeron, the stick rode up slashing Bergeron in a part of his body that caused a sort of pain that any male can undoubtedly associate with.
Fairly upset, Bergeron immediately gave up on the play that was rapidly moving down the ice electing to instead have some words and a few viscous shoves with the man who had caused him to sing soprano. They made it out to about the tops of the circles before Bergeron turned and slammed his fist into Myers' upper chest. From there, no matter how gentlemanly the prelude was, the gloves came off and it was time to fight.
"He asked if I wanted to do it and I was fine with it," Bergeron said. "I asked him, also."
Now while that kind of speech sounds more like the kind you would use to ask someone to go to prom with you, you have to hand it to Bergeron going up against a man who outweighs him by 30 pounds and towers nearly 4 inches taller than he.
Bergeron eluded to that fact after the game admitting that he did not necessarily realize how much bigger Myers truly is.
"Obviously you don't think about that when you're on the ice and you're fired up," Bergeron said. "You're not happy with what just happened. I kind of realized pretty quickly, he's pretty tall. Tough to get a pretty good reach."
This fighting major was Bergeron's 3rd in his 10 year career but actually the 1st ever assessed to him during a regular season game.
"Well, he has to stand up for himself," Claude Jullian said and in this case he did more than that. His fight ignited something within the Bruins that allowed them to pull away from a never to be underestimated Sabers team.
To the point in the game where Bergeron and Myers dropped the gloves, the Bruins offence had already combined to produce two artful goals one of which coming via slick work in the middle of the ice by Patrice Bergeron and Ryan Spooner that gave winger, Carl Soderberg the opportunity to dish the puck off to Riley Smith who was there to smack the puck into the back of the net. However, the Sabers did manage to come back late in the 1st tying the game with 1:06 to go in the 1st period off of a fake along the goal-line that drew Tuukka Rask of his post and allowed the weak shot to trickle in.
The Bergeron right came mere minutes after the Bruins took back the lead and while it further energized the team, David Krejci's goal scored with 18:20 to go in the 2nd period, was the one that took the lead for good. The goal was Krejci's 7th of the year.
Milan Lucic added a goal later in the 3rd while Smith pounded in an empty netter as well, sealing the win for Boston and handing him his 2nd 2 goal game of his career. This game only proved Smith's value to the team while also showing how he not Loui Eriksson might be the best thing that has come out of July's blockbuster trade that sent Tyler Seguin in Dallas.
"He's been great for us all year," Bergeron said when asked about the value of Smith. "He's a young guy I didn't know much about obviously for playing out west. I'm really impressed with the way he's carried himself all year and the way he also improved from training camp to the start of the year to now. He keeps taking steps forward and I think it's just great to see."
As was clear going into Saturday night, the Bruins who had been blown out twice in under a month needed not only a win against Buffalo but also that kind of win that asserts you as a great team in this league. They needed to beat the Sabers up and between the Bergeron fight, Riley Smith's scoring clinic and Johnny Boychuck's quietly laying down a few monster body checks, this game fit the credentials of the order perfectly.
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