After a devastating 1-6 loss Wednesday night in Detroit, the Bruins recovered their style of hockey on Thanksgiving weekend with two home wins over the New York Rangers and Columbus Blue Jackets.
Claude Julien's disciplinary actions once again paid off ...
Following a short night of rest from a curt and unsuccessfull trip to Detroit, Coach Julien concentrated his team on Thanksgiving morning to reflect what went wrong in "Hockeytown USA".
He and his assistants had one training to get the team ready for their back-to-back homestand, starting with the annual Thanksgiving Showdown, this year against the Rangers, and the game against Columbus the following night.
With Dennis Seidenberg and Shawn Thornton back in the lineup the B's were determent to make their fans forget about their "performance" midweek.
A nasty first period with lots of penalties was trademarked by the Bruins spending most of their time in the offensive zone, creating early chances.
Captain Chara himself contributed to the leading goal, which started with a shot from him at the hashmarks and ended with him setting up Brad Marchand's one-timer.
A minute later, the whole dominance was brought down by Rick Nash's early equalizer, followed by another Rangers goal scored by Ryan McDonagh.
Three Bruins players (Boychuk, Bergeron and Chara) weren't able to get the puck from Nash who was skating behind the net and turned infront of it to score on Rask, who was also way out of position.
82 seconds later it's Hamilton who let's Pouliot create a screen infront of Rask, allowing him to contribute to New York's game leading goal.
The rest of the 1st, Boston could be happy not to concede another goal as they were completely lost all over the ice. Another team turned up for the rest of the game as they had more than one chance to tie the game in the 2nd, most of the time denied by extraordinary goaltending from Henrik Lundqivst.
It didn't took long in the 3rd to achieve that goal though, Marchand engages three Rangers players to give Bergeron time and space to prepare a shot in the crease. The puck get's somehow deflected and behind Lundqivst to tie the game at 2 - 2.
Just a matter of time until the Bruins would score another goal as they outshot the Rags 10 to 4 in the 3rd.
Short and simple: Iginla creates the turnover behind the goalline, Krejci sees Chara at the blueline and Captain Z fires a bomb past Lundqvist to complete his Gordie Howe Hat trick.
The hard-earned victory was complete as the B's D shut down any offensive efforts from the Rangers for the rest of the period.
After allowing six goals Wednesday night and two in 82 seconds against the Rags, Tuukka Rask got his break against the Jackets when Chad Johnson appeared in his 5th start of the season, recording his 4th victory.
Patrice Bergeron and Milan Lucic (PP) brought the B's on the road to victory midway through the first period as they were dominating the Jackets by miles.
Similar conditions trademarked the second period where the Bruins outshot Columbus by 9 shots but just couldn't get the puck behind Jackets back-up Curtis McElhinney, who had a great night.
Looch dropped gloves with Dalton Proud, before sealing the deal with his second goal of the game early in the 3rd.
The B's took their foot of the pedal for a short time, permiting Ryan Johanson to score the Jackets only goal of the night.
Nevertheless, the victory was never in danger and Thanksgiving helped the team to get back on winning track.
For the first time since early October, the B's have more than three days off before facing their arch-rivals in Montréal Thursday night.
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