Charlie McAvoy's Gordie Howe Hat Trick Leads The Way Past Columbus

The Bruins got some bad news minutes before faceoff as the team announced that David Krejci would miss tonight's contest with an upper-body injury.  He has already been ruled out for tomorrow night's game at the Buffalo Sabres.

The hottest line in hockey opened the scoring at 14:48 of the first period.  Zdeno Chara started the rush by getting the puck up to Brad Marchand.  Shortly after entering the zone, Marchand tried to feed the puck across the ice to David Pastrnak, but the pass was blocked.  However, the puck bounced right to Patrice Bergeron who made a touch pass back into the slot where he quickly shot it past Sergei Bobrovsky.  Marchand's 14^th goal of the year extended his point streak to a career-high nine games.

Jake DeBrusk and the Bruins power play took over the second period to put some space between themselves and the Blue Jackets.  The first two power play goals came at 8:23 when DeBrusk carried the puck to the goal line before finding David Backes at the bottom of the right circle for a one-timer goal. Danton Heinen had the secondary assist on Backes' third goal of the season.

Three and a half minutes later, DeBrusk made another great pass across the goal crease to Charlie McAvoy for an easy goal into the wide open Columbus net.  Heinen picked up his second point of the period with another secondary assist on the play.

McAvoy started off his third period by getting into his first NHL fight against Pierre-Luc Dubois. He was giving seven penalty minutes as he got an extra minor for an illegal check to the head.

The Blue Jackets finally got on the at the 8:32 mark as Josh Anderson crept the front of the net and banged home a feed from behind the net from Alexander Wennberg. 

Four minutes later, Backes made a cross-ice pass to Danton Heinen in the left circle where he fired the puck past Bobrovsky for his first career three point night.  McAvoy picked up the secondary assist to complete the Gordie Howe hat trick.

Tim Schaller was awarded a penalty shot shortly after Heinen's goal, but he was denied by the glove hand of Bobrovsky.

Torey Krug scored his fifth goal of the year at 15:44 as his shot from the left point fluttered through traffic and into the Columbus net.  Anders Bjork and Ryan Spooner had the assists on the play.

At this point of the evening the only drama that remained was whether or not David Pastrnak would extend his point streak to 12 games.  We got that answer at 17:26 as Pastrnak lost the handle of the puck in front of the net, but Marchand took it and fed it to Bergeron in the slot for his eighth goal on the year.

The onslaught continued just over a minute later as Spooner forced a turnover and passed it to DeBrusk in front of the net where he beat Bobrovsky to the glove side.

Seth Jones added a meaningless power play goal with 14 seconds remaining, but it was far too little too late for the Blue Jackets.

Any time you can put seven goals on the reigning Vezina Trophy winner you have to feel good about your efforts.  However, the Bruins do not have long to bask in the glory of this impressive win as they are right back at it in Buffalo tomorrow night.