Boston Bruins goaltender Tuukka Rask wanted to start today’s game, but the B’s said no, opting to give the franchise netminder a breather before Sochi. It proved to be the right move as the Bruins didn’t need in net to rip Craig Anderson and the Ottawa Senators a new one this afternoon, ending their pre-Olympic season on a high note by way of a 7-2 beatdown.

For the B’s, it just took one Ottawa miscue to open the floodgates.

Erik Condra took a penalty midway through the period, and just moments later, a Carl Soderberg dish to Patrice Bergeron gave the Team Canada will-be his 15th of the year. Then, not even five minutes later, Chris Kelly struck on a similar goal, a tip-in, for his fourth goal of the year and first since Oct. 19.

Holding a 2-0 edge through 20, it was clear as day-- the Bruins, in their fourth head to head against the Senators this year, were off to the races.

And just 4:55 into the second period, Bergeron confirmed that belief.

Absolutely dancing around a statuesque Erik Karlsson, and with Jared Cowen in no man’s land, No. 37 struck with his second of the game (and 16th of the season). Though Ottawa would cut the Boston lead back to two behind Bobby Ryan’s 21st of the year, yet another meltdown by Cowen and company minutes later put the Bruins back in front by three.

With David Krejci holding the puck along the goal-line, and with Eric Gryba forced out of the play with Krejci’s patience, the Czech Olympian dished the puck to the front of Anderson’s cage, where Jarome Iginla sat patiently before collecting his 17th goal of the year.

Another tip-in, and another goal where Cowen was completely out to lunch.

Holding a 4-1 edge through one sided periods, the Black-and-Gold made it 6-1 off goals from Milan Lucic and Brad Marchand, and added a seventh, this time off the stick of Soderberg, in what’d end as a complete dismantling of the Ottawa blue line.

“The other team obviously showed that they were better prepared and better structured, which they are,” Ottawa coach Paul MacLean said of the B’s after today’s loss, the Sens’ 11th road loss of the year. “They’re one of the best teams in the east and we’ve often said that we respect the way they play, and they certainly – we probably owe them a couple of bucks for the clinic they put on today.

“Over the whole course of the game they were way better than we were. And one thing leads to another and it just compounds and it compounds and it just keeps, so yeah, we repeated ourselves over and over again and at the end of the day there didn’t seem to be any way for us to stand the tide, they just kept coming and coming, and that’s a credit to them. They’re at a place that we are working to get to. We have a long way to go to get there.”

On the Ottawa side, the troubles began with their defensemen, and those problems constantly ending with the Bruins’ goal horn signaling yet another marker for the Atlantic-best Bruins. Karlsson had a bad night, Cowen was on the ice for six of Boston’s seven goals, and their structure was a nightmare.

The Bruins had all day (and then some) to dance around Ottawa’s defenders.

“They’re an elite team, there’s a reason why they’re as good of a team as they are and then once the game gets out of hand there now they’re making behind the back passes and seaming everything,” Ottawa captain Jason Spezza said. “The offense you have when you’re up by five is a little different then when it’s a one-goal game so we did it to ourselves and they made us pay.”

While it’s easy to say in a blowout where the Sens were stomped on, the Bruins had their attack straight up rolling this afternoon. The Bergeron line was strong as ever. The Krejci line hemmed the Senators in their own. But perhaps most noteworthy, the club’s third line of Kelly, Soderberg, and Loui Eriksson had their best game to date. This is the one game where you watched the 33-year-old Kelly skate around and found yourself saying that he looks comfortable out there. He looked like the Kelly you’ve come to expect, and that’s a relief (and perhaps expected) after watching him struggle out of the gate in his return from a broken fibula just a few weeks ago.

A consistent three-line attack? With Rask in net? Man, oh man.

Blowout or not, today was just another example of what this team is capable of when their offense has time and space to generate looks. There’s skill on lines one through three (and even the fourth at times), and it’s just relentless for visitors, evident by the Bruins’ 23-6-2 record at TD Garden.

“There’s only one team in our conference that’s ahead of us [Pittsburgh Penguins] and there’s still lots of hockey to be played,” B’s coach Claude Julien said today. “Again, for me, during the regular season I always look more for consistency versus whether a team gets really, really hot and when the playoffs start they’ve dropped a little bit. I just want consistency and as I said, my goal is always to have the team playing its best at the right time of the year.”

Kevan Miller drops gloves, smashes Zack Smith

Undrafted defensemen Kevan Miller had his fair share of battles on the way to the National Hockey League, and when the gloves are off, he can hang. Something that Ottawa's Zack Smith learned earlier this afternoon.



"I think his fight tonight no doubt impressed a lot of people. When you look at his game and the way he was tonight—physical, gets the puck, makes the right plays. He’s just gaining more and more confidence all the time," said Julien, adding, "You got to give credit to the people that work in this organization to find those players and bring them to us because right now he’s a real valuable piece of our defensive core."

It was the California-born Miller's second fight at the NHL level this year, and while it got the crowd out of their seats and roaring, it was just another day at the office.

"It was more of just the situation in the game, I didn’t really need to prove anything, the opportunity arises and it’s part of my game," Miller said of the scrap. "This is my third year in the system now, I think they know my game and I have kind of tried to find my game a little bit in the last 20 games or so. It’s still a work in progress, I’m still trying to be better everyday at different stuff so I’m excited about it."

Miller finished the night with a plus-3 rating and three takeaways in over 19 minutes.

Up next

For many Bruins, tomorrow begins a 17-day layoff from the rink. For a select few, a trip to Sochi to represent their country in the Winter Games is on the way. Krejci will fly out to play for the Czech Republic, Bergeron for Canada, Eriksson for Sweden, Zdeno Chara (who’s already there) for Slovakia, and the 26-year-old Rask for Finland. Coach Claude Julien will also behind Team Canada’s bench, and general manager Peter Chiarelli will watch from their management’s box.

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