And while the pain from the loss in Game 6 against the reigning champions has dulled somewhat over the passage of time, the sting from Monday's loss to the hated Habs is still fresh - but since the schedule precludes a grudge match with Montreal unless they meet in the post-season, the Chicago Blackhawks were a decent consolation prize for the frustrated Bruins...
...and with top line centerman Patrice Bergeron owing the champs a taste of how he plays when he's not nursing punctured lungs and such, the marriage of the revenge motives to the fact that the Bruins are playing as well if not better than any team in the league - well - the champs got a taste of the whip that they won't forget for a while.
Bergeron found twine twice and Carl Soderberg once as goaltender Tuukka Rask stoned all 28 shots he faced between the pipes for his league-leading seventh shutout of the season in a 3-0 Bruins' win over the short-handed Blackhawks Thursday night at TD Garden in downtown Boston.
Rask was stellar, thwarting every chance - even the three that pesky left winger Brandon Saad fired in on him, Saad's sixteen minutes on the ice spent trying to will the 'Hawks into generating any offense at all - the Finnish netminder putting himself squarely in the discussion for Vezina Trophy as the league's best goal tender...
...while his counterpart for the Blackhawks, Corey Crawford, held his own for most of the game - allowing just a Bergeron redirection midway through the opening frame until he sprung a leak between the five and six minute marks of the third, Soderberg's power drive from the low slot and Bergeron's second of the evening putting the game out of reach - though the final goal was more about Crawford being careless than anything else.
Just 13 seconds after Soderberg snapped in a Chris Kelly dime from just inside the right circle, Crawford circled behind the net to play a puck that had been dumped in deep, backhanding the puck to defenseman Niklas Hjalmarsson just beyond the trapezoid - except the Bruins had just made a fantastic line change, first-line winger Brad Marchand flying down the ice and picking Hjalmarsson's pocket, hitting a completely uncovered Bergeron with a pass just inside the left circle.
The goal wasn't there any more, though, courtesy of Crawford who in his panic to get back between the pipes tipped the goal forward, and Bergeron's shot skittered through the crease, crossing the plane and through the gap created by Crawford, bouncing off the end boards - a quick phone call to Toronto confirmed it's validity and the Bruins had more than enough on the scoreboard to best the Blackhawks.
The score certainly indicates a measure of dominance in the match - and Chicago fans can point to missing right winger Patrick Kane for their misfortune - but this game was won with a display of sound fundamentals by a Bruins' team that is on such a roll that they have lost in regulation just once since the beginning of February, sporting a record of 16-1-3 in that span...
...in the process taking over the top spot in the National Hockey League for scoring offense and defense - outscoring their opponents 73-34, getting stronger on defense as the season wears on, allowing just two goals or less in the past 10 games, including recording a shutout in two of their last four. Clearly, the Bruins are on such a roll that they appear poised to challenge for the President's Cup and home ice advantage throughout the playoffs.
And any team that doesn't bring their "A" game against the Bruins are sure to pay a heavy price, as the Blackhawks found out on Thursday night - but if the Bruins were satisfied with their effort against the team that accepted the Stanley Cup on their logo on center ice last June, they sure weren't letting on.
"I would say it was a closer game than maybe the score showed, but we really tried to focus on our defense and not to give them much," defenseman Zdeno Chara told reporters afterwards. "Obviously, a team like that with the personnel they have, they've got to get some chances. But for the most part I thought we did a good job playing really tight defensively and not giving them too many."
That's about as close as you'll hear to a sigh of satisfaction from the Bruins, because anything short of Chara accepting the Cup on the spoked "B" logo and hoisting it over his head will be a disappointment.
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