Facing the Bruins anywhere has been a miserable experience for opponents this season. Facing them at TD Garden has been a straight-up nightmare.
The Bruins improved to 11-0-0 at home with a 6-1 win over the Chicago Blackhawks Saturday night. With the victory, they tied the NHL record for most consecutive home wins to start a season, joining the 1963-64 Blackhawks and last year's Florida Panthers.
Saturday's game was close for a little while, but in score only. The Bruins dominated the Blackhawks right from the opening faceoff, outshooting them 15-3 in the first period. They opened the scoring 4:53 in when Brad Marchand fed David Pastrnak for a power-play goal, with Pastrnak in the right circle rather than his usual home on the left.
It could have been much worse after one. The Bruins' second power play generated a ton of pressure, too, but couldn't find the finish. Pastrnak got robbed of another goal by Petr Mrazek after a terrific setup from Taylor Hall. Pavel Zacha hit a post.
It did get much worse in the second. The Bruins made it 2-0 4:28 into the middle stanza when Charlie McAvoy (who had four assists on the night) set up Patrice Bergeron for Bergeron's ninth goal of the season and 999th point of his career. The Blackhawks did cut the lead to 2-1 with a power-play goal, but that didn't slow Boston's momentum at all.
If anything, it spurred the Bruins to turn the heat up even more for the remainder of the period. They struck again on the power play when Marchand threw a puck to the front that deflected off Jake DeBrusk and in. Just over a minute later, A.J. Greer set up David Krejci for a one-timer goal, Krejci's third goal in the last two games.
When it was all said and done, the Bruins led 4-1 after two and had a 30-9 shots on goal advantage. Game over, especially since the Bruins have been the best third-period team in the NHL this season. They would, in fact, score two more in the third, off the sticks of Pastrnak and Hall.
The Bruins didn't want to make a big deal of potentially tying the home start record before the game.
"I don't think, to be honest, this group cares a whole lot about that," Hampus Lindholm said. "I think it's more about the process and getting better in here. It's obviously something that would be really fun to accomplish. It'll be one of those little things along the way that will just be like a little [feather] in the cap type of thing, but I think we really just want to focus on getting better and improving every day."
Well, the Bruins did both on Saturday. They got that feather in the cap by tying the record, and they also continued to improve. Saturday night was easily one of their most complete efforts of an already impressive season.
Yes, it came against a bad Blackhawks team. But the Bruins have taken some periods off against some other non-playoff teams recently. That wasn't the case Saturday. And bringing a more complete effort like this is going to be crucial moving forward.
The Bruins now enter the toughest three-week stretch of their season. Between Monday and Dec. 11, they will face the Tampa Bay Lightning twice, Bruce Cassidy's Vegas Golden Knights twice, the defending champion Colorado Avalanche twice, the Florida Panthers once, and the Carolina Hurricanes once. One or two good periods won't cut it against those teams.
"You're not gonna have 82 great games," Marchand said after the game, "but we want to continue to build towards the playoffs and making sure we're playing a complete game more frequently than what we have right now. It's early and we're playing well, so we have to be happy with that, but we need to be better and continue to be better."
After a quick pre-Thanksgiving trip to Florida this week, the Bruins will have a chance to break the record for consecutive home wins to start a season on Black Friday against the Hurricanes, a team that was their boogeyman all last season. Boston got outscored 16-1 in three regular-season losses to Carolina last year, then lost to the Hurricanes in seven games in the first round of the playoffs.
The Bruins have already proven they can dominate on home ice against an admittedly relatively easy schedule so far. Now it's time to see if they can continue to make the Garden a house of horrors even as the level of difficulty ramps up.
After a night when 11 different Bruins registered a point, Bergeron knows it will continue to take that kind of all-hands-on-deck effort to keep this going.
"It's a special team," Bergeron said Saturday night. "We have a lot of depth, and I think it shows. Everyone is contributing, everyone is valued, and I think everyone has confidence. I think that's the biggest thing. It seems like everyone is playing free and playing the right way. You have the result that we're having right now because everyone's contributing."
