Bruins lead early, defeats Blue Jackets 5-2

The Boston Bruins played good hockey despite leaving Montreal with a 3-2 loss to the Canadiens on Tuesday night and they carried their good habits in a 5-2 win over the Columbus Blue Jackets on Thursday night.

Bruins left-winger Brad Marchand almost got the Bruins rolling first on the scoreboard, challenging Blue Jackets Goalie Sergei Bobrovsky early. But, Blue Jackets Captain Nick Foligno got to it first. Foligno put his team on the board just 2:29 into the game after capitalizing on the Bruins turnover with forward Alexander Wennberg.

However, the Bruins scored four unanswered goals in 4:01 more than halfway into the first period.

Defenseman Torey Krug, who said he is starting to feel confident with his game after having surgery on his right shoulder during the offseason, notched his first goal of the season. Forward Matt Beleskey scored 1:08 after Krug’s goal. Centers Austin Czarnik scored his second goal of the season, which followed with Tim Schaller’s goal, both goals were just 24 seconds a part. Play continued after Schaller scored his first of the season, but the horn sounded from the “situation room,” the league’s centralized video replay room in Downtown Toronto, which notified the referees to stop the play and review the goal. After video review, referees confirmed a good goal for Schaller.

“I think we have a lot of confidence right now in our game – the five-on-five game, especially, I think is coming together,” said Krug to bostonbruins.com. “We’re playing fast, we know every time a line jumps over the board what we’re going to get out of them.”

Beleskey, who assisted on Czarnik’s goal, said to bostonbruins.com that: “It’s hard to stop teams with four lines going.”

Blue Jackets starting goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky, who allowed four goals on nine shots he faced on 12:48 minutes of ice time, was pulled for the night, giving back-up goalie Curtis McElhinney the start of his second game appearance of the season since Nov. 5 against the St. Louis Blues. McElhinney went on to make 22 saves of the game.

“I thought we had a good start. They turned it up a notch. We didn’t compete hard enough tonight,” Foligno said to NHL.com. “[Bobrovsky] had been playing well for us and to have him get chased out of the net is a bad situation. A lot of self-inflicted wounds.”

Forward David Backes, the latest Bruin to come off of the injury bug after missing two games for an elbow surgery, scored his third goal of the season at 11:51 in the second period after a pass from center David Krejci. Goaltender Tuukka Rask, who made 22 saves, limited the Blue Jackets to just two goals of the night after allowing a face-off tip won by Bruins center Dominic Moore. The B’s bounce in the back of Rask’s net by defenseman Colin Miller was awarded to Blue Jackets center Sam Gager.

The two teams will face each other again on what will be their third matchup of the season on Dec. 27 at the Nationwide Arena in Columbus, Ohio at 7:00 p.m.

With a win over the Blue Jackets, the Bruins have now won five of their last seven games and improve to a 8-6-0 record. The Bruins are on a three-game road trip starting on Saturday night in a matchup against the Arizona Coyotes, which is the first meeting between the two teams this season. Puck drop is set for 8:00 p.m. (ET) at the Gila River Arena.

“That’s a big part of it, so we’re going to continue to remain confident in our game and make sure our five-on-five game continues on the road and we’ll bring that back home when we get back,” said Krug to bostonbruins.com.