BOSTON – The questions going into Tuesday night’s game with the Senators were about how the Bruins were going to possibly survive offensively without the services of David Krejci.
The Bruins came out with a 7-3 win over the Senators, and some pretty good ideas of how they’ll generate offense while also missing their top playmaking center for the foreseeable future with an upper body injury. The Bruins put together the season-high seven goals, and impressive got multiple goal efforts from Jimmy Hayes, Patrice Bergeron and Matt Beleskey while also watching the B’s power play unit crank out four goals.
Clearly it won’t be the norm every night, and there will be tough times ahead without Krejci’s passing, puck possession and power play skills. But the Bruins still looked like a team that might be much better positioned to handle a Krejci absence this season than they did last year while floundering as the 22nd ranked offense in the NHL.
“It’s a team thing. I think there are a lot of people that are capable of producing for us when we work well together, and that’s what you saw tonight. Our power play again was good. With David Krejci not there, that’s a big loss so we have had to move some players around, but still the power play does a good job,” said Claude Julien. “Even that last one was just a make-up group that was trying everything they could to give Jimmy his hat trick. So I liked the way that they were thinking in a 6-3 game, and that they are trying to help their teammate out.”
It was certainly a night where dry spells came to an end for Bruins all across the board. Beleskey has been in a season-long funk despite plenty of chances, but he finished with a pair of well-deserved goals. Hayes obliterated a stretch of one goal in his last 21 games by posting the first hat trick of his NHL career, and Bergeron continues to creep up toward the team lead with 14 goals on the season.
Ryan Spooner playing in place of Krejci notched a couple of assists, and continued a productive month that’s seen him operating at a point-per-game pace.
Nobody knows how long it will continue, but the Bruins can continue to compete at their current level if they can simply maintain something close to their current offensive numbers until Krejci can return to the lineup.
Boston Bruins
“It was a pretty good game and we played the way we want to play. I think every line contributed and that’s what you need if you want to…you can’t replace Krech [David Krejci], I’ve said that before," said Patrice Bergeron. “But you need everyone to step up and every line to do that, and I thought [Tuesday’s win] was a great example of how we need to win games.”
Now the Bruins have proven they can do it, and it’s simply a matter of not allowing things to slacken after such an impressive, engaged and productive first night without the services of their leading point scorer.