Defenseman Zdeno Chara scored his first career hat trick and the Boston Bruins skated over the Carolina Hurricanes, 7-0 in a matinee at TD Garden in Boston on Monday afternoon.
The Hurricanes jumped out to a good start early in the game and were out-shooting and out-chancing the home team, but Cam Ward allowed two quick goals and the wheels fell off for the Canes.
Mark Stuart started things off when he blasted in a shot from the blueline and then Chara scored his first during a powerplay about four minutes later. Chara's goal came shortly after Milan Lucic had a goal taken off the board because of a Chara penalty behind the play.
Maurice saw enough and replaced Ward with Justin Peters, who was not in a good mood after he hit the ice. Peters was called for two penalties when he tackled one Bruin who skated into him and cross-checked another. He clothes-lined Tyler Seguin when he also came too close, but there was no penalty on that one.
One can only guess that Peters was trying to show his defensemen what needed to be done when opponents crashed the crease.
The Bruins led 3-0 after one, 5-0 after two, and closed out with two more goals in the third. One can only hope that the Hurricanes were saving themselves for Tuesday night when they face this same team again at the RBC, because they never really challenged much after the first period.
Troy Bodie dropped the gloves with Adam McQuaid, (the Bruin picked up an instigator), possibly setting the tone for what should be a rough and tumble second game of this back-to-back matchup.
Quick Stats and Thoughts:
- This was another one of those games that is better left at the rink. After a couple of bad bounces, including an unbelievable goal by Gregory Campbell, who tipped in a shot while being knocked down by Tuomo Ruutu, you could tell this was not going to be Carolina's day.
- Tomorrow's game is vitally important now, not only to show Boston that they will not be pushed around, but Carolina really needs the two points.
- The Canes were out-shot, 38-31, and were out-shot in each and every period. That's not good because the losing team should at least be able to muster up some extra shots while the winning team backs off a bit. There was not much of a push back by the Canes in this one.
- No one on the team had a better faceoff percentage than 42%.
- Jamie McBain had a team high four blocked shots, Eric Staal had a team high five shots on goal, and Ruutu had a team high five hits. Other than that, there's not much more to report here.
Post Game Interviews: