Tuuka Rask helped backstop the Bruins to a road victory against their rival Montreal Canadiens on Wednesday night. Photo courtesy of NHL.com
Montreal- Loui Eriksson and Landon Ferraro scored just 42 seconds apart in the third period Wednesday night to lift the Boston Bruins to a 3-1 victory over the Montreal Canadiens in front of a sell out crowd of 21,288 fans at the Bell Centre.
The win by the Bruins is the first in 8 games in the regular season versus Montreal. The Habs had won 7 in a row and the 12 of the last 13 regular season contests with the B’s.
It looked to be more of the same on Wednesday as the Canadiens struck first in the opening period almost 9 minutes in. Paul Byron would send a puck to the front of the net with Thomas Plekanac positioned in front of Boston goalie Tuuka Rask. The puck would bounce off the body of Plekanac and into the net. The goal was credited to Byron to make it 1-0 Montreal.
The game remained 1-0 into the third period. With the Habs on the powerplay, Zdeno Chara would break up a cross ice pass from Canadiens defenseman PK Subban batting the puck out of midair and leading to a breakaway chance from Eriksson. Eriksson would make a quick move and wrist it with his forehand under the pads of Montreal rookie goaltender Mike Condon as he was checked to the ice from behind by Montreal defenseman Jeff Petry. The shorthanded goal made it 1-1 with still over 12 minutes left. The game winner from Ferraro came on a great backhanded pass from Ryan Spooner who found him wide open at the top of the left faceoff circle. Ferraros half slapshot beat Condon high glove side and the Bruins took a 2-1 lead.
The Bruins put the game away on a hustle play from Brad Marchand with just over 6 minutes remaining. Marchand beat a Montreal player to the puck behind the net. Marchand swept the puck out to Patrick Bergeron in front of the net and to the left of Condon, who deeked out the Habs netminder and buried the wrist shot into a half open net to make it 3-1. It was Bergerons 9th goal of the season and also his 576th NHL point moving him past Milt Schmidt into 11th place on the Bruins all time scoring list.
Rask finished with 32 saves on the night as the Bruins improved to 10-2-2 on the road this season and overall 7-1-2 in their last 10 games played.
The Bruins (15-9-3) return to action at home Saturday afternoon at 1 p.m. against the Florida Panthers.
