Heinen Hat-Trick caps off seven different goal scorers for Boston

BOSTON, MA – The Boston Bruins walloped their rival Montreal Canadiens 9-4 in front of a sold-out TD Garden on Saturday, a night when they honored the 1987-88 team that ended a 45-year playoff losing streak against the Canadiens. 

Danton Heinen scored his first career Hat-Trick while David Pastrnak notched his 30th goal of the year for the seventh time in his career, and Brad Marchand tallied goal number 20 on the year to reach that milestone for the 11th time, a new Bruins franchise record. Brandon Carlo, Jake DeBrusk, Charlie Coyle, and Pavel Zacha picked up a goal for Boston en route to their sixth straight win over the Canadiens. Only two out of 18 players on the Bruins game sheet did not register a point tonight.

“It talks about the evolution of our team and growing offensively,” said Bruins Head Coach Jim Montgomery. “I don’t think we ever envisioned having a night like this, and over the course of 82 games, there are some outliers. But we’ve been seeing this coming for four games. We’re hanging on to pucks and wind up with high Grade A chances. There were numerous tonight.”

Despite the Bruins’ offensive output, Cole Caufield and the Canadiens opened the scoring at 9:18 of the first. Caufield banged in a rebound while all alone at the side of the Bruins net. Sean Monaghan and Juraj Slafkovsky assisted on the power-play strike.

Carlo tied it 1-1 at 12:47 when he jumped into the offensive rush and tipped a Trent Frederic saucer pass past Canadiens goalie Sam Montembeault. The goal was Carlo’s third of the year in his first game back after missing the last five with a concussion.

Montembeault had a long night despite only lasting 49:13 minutes of action. The 27-year-old gave up eight goals on 30 shots.

The Canadiens pulled ahead again at 15:03 when Joel Armia answered with a tip-in past Linus Ullmark (17 saves). Joshua Roy and Monahan assisted on Armia’s eighth of the year.

DeBrusk continued his strong play when he tied the game 2-2 at 18:10. DeBrusk carried the puck out of the left corner and stuffed a shot between Montembeault and the post for his seventh goal in the last 13 games, and 11th of the year. 

Heinen gave the Bruins their first lead of the night with less than a minute remaining in the first when he redirected a Matt Grzelcyk shot-pass past Montembeault at the left post. 

Montreal defenseman Mike Matheson tied the game 3-3 when he blasted a one-timer past Ullmark on the man advantage at 6:16. Monahan (three assists) and Nick Suzuki got the helpers.

Heinen struck again at 10:46 of the second when he ripped a snapshot past Montembeault top corner to make it 4-3 Bruins. Heinen collected a Jesper Boqvist pass at the Bruins’ blue line and raced in two-on-one with Matthew Poitras before electing to shoot.

Coyle added to the Bruins lead forty-six seconds later when he poke-checked a Pastrnak pass past the Canadiens netminder for his 16th of the year.

Montreal would pull one back at 13:19 when Hampus Lindholm had the misfortune of knocking a Brendan Gallagherrebound under the pad of Ullmark to make it 5-4.

Pastrnak hit the 30-goal mark at 1:26 of the third when he beat Canadien’s defenseman Jayden Struble in on Montembeault, who made the pad stop on Pastrnak. Pastrnak swatted the rebound in to make it 6-4.

Marchand’s goal came at 4:32 when he deposited a Coyle pass out from behind the net past the beleaguered Montembeault with a one-timer from the slot. 

Zacha’s goal resulted from nifty passing between him and linemates DeBrusk and James van Riemsdyk. DeBrusk circled the Montreal net and fired a pass through the top of the crease to a wide-open Zacha for his 10th of the season, which ended Montebealut’s night.

Heinen capped off the evening with a power-play strike for the hatty at the side of the Canadiens net to beat Cayden Primeau, who came on in relief for the visitors. Van Riemsdyk and Morgan Geekie assisted on the goal.

“That’s one thing about the Bruins is how unselfish the group is,” said Montgomery. “I’ve said it so many times. It’s amazing how everybody cares about everybody else. They continuously went down low to try to get it to Heinen. It was nice. I’m happy for him.”

“He hasn’t been scoring. I actually talked to him, I guess yesterday, about it. Like, you got to keep getting to those areas,” added Montgomery. “He (has) the fifth-most scoring chances, five-on-five, on our team, the way we track it. So he’s doing a lot of good things, but he’s not burying them. And I could sense the frustration. So it was nice for him to get it.”

“I’m not going to lie it felt good,” said Heinen of the three-goal performance. “It hasn’t been going in lately so it feels good to see it go in. Just contributing to the win is good.”