A white-hot month of November isn’t foreign territory for the Boston Bruins.

In Nov. 2008, the Bruins rattled off a 11-1-1 month that got the ball rolling on what ended as an East-best 116-point year. In Nov. 2011, Boston went a remarkable 12-0-1 and finished the year with 102 points, good enough for the second seed in the East. Both times, the B’s won the then-Northeast Division. And despite a new name (Atlantic), the Bruins certainly hope that a 10-3-2 month of November has a similar end result.

Naturally, I don’t feel as if I need to tell you that taking 22 of a possible 30 points in a month -- a 66.6 point percentage -- is damn good. But the manner in which the Bruins did it was equally impressive.

November didn’t exactly come with a light schedule for the Black-and-Gold.

Of the Bruins’ 15 games this past month, they had two four-game weeks (in a row, no less), three sets of back-to-backs, two matchups with Henrik Lundqvist and the New York Rangers, and battles with division rival Toronto Maple Leafs, Tampa Bay Lightning, and Detroit Red Wings.

But where did the success start for the B’s? In net. Much like it has all season long.

The Bruins have heavily relied on the 26-year-old Tuukka Rask on a nightly basis this season, and in November, the Finnish netminder was on point night in and night out. Aside from his six-goal stinker against the Wings this past Wednesday, Rask was dialed in and on top of his game.

Even with the awful loss to Detroit factored in, Rask finished the month with a 7-2-2 record on the month and with a .929 save percentage. For the sake of discussion, take that uncharacteristically awful Detroit game out of the equation and Rask’s November reads as seven wins in 10 games with 280 stops on 297 shots, good for a .942 save percentage. Obviously you can’t pick and choose which games to analyze, but Rask’s month included eight games of allowing two goals or less, with his best outing undoubtedly coming in Nov. 19’s season-high 43-save contest against the Blueshirts.

And on those nights where Rask rode the pine, backup Chad Johnson proved to be adequate substitution in the Boston crease. While Johnson (undeservedly) took the loss in his first outing of the month, a 31-save defeat at the hands of the New York Islanders, the 27-year-old rebounded with three straight victories over the course of a 16-day span, including two against Columbus.

For Johnson, it was just an extremely strange stretch, too. Though it was through no fault of his own -- if you even want to call it a ‘fault’ -- but in his last 121 minutes of play, Johnson was peppered with a combined 38 shots. Or a shot every three minutes or so. It was bizarre, really.

“I don’t get a lot of action,” Johnson quipped on Saturday night after a 14-shot effort from the Blue Jackets. “Last game I played I had some in the third so, yeah it’s tough to not really see any action in my end or any shots so you just try and stay as mentally sharp as possible and just try to stay into it.”

The direct reason for that comes back to the play of the B’s defense.

Bolstered by the return of its two stay-at-home defenders, Adam McQuaid and Dennis Seidenberg, the Bruins were in classic form as they limited the chances for the opposition, and against some top tier scoring talents, too. However, the Bruins’ defense went through its bumps and bruises, particularly when it came to the play of their two puck-movers, Torey Krug and Dougie Hamilton.

In the case of Hamilton, there’s really no real way to harp on his game given how improved he’s become in his own zone and especially with his decision making, but he still did go through a cold streak featuring an 11-game pointless skid. That’s not what you expect out of a d-man you let quarterback your second power-play unit, especially given its recent success.

Krug’s story brought about a different tale. The rookie blue-liner continued to put up points -- finishing the month with three goals and nine points in 15 games -- but struggled mightily in his own zone, especially without his usual safety net of McQuaid for eight contests.

On the offensive side of things, it was the Month of the Bergeron line. Finally.

After a frustrating month of October for the trio of Patrice Bergeron, Loui Eriksson, and 5-foot-9 winger Brad Marchand, the three struck up an 11-goal, 26-point month of November headlined by a combined three game-winning goals from the trio (two from Bergeron and one from Marchand). Their performance was strong, and undoubtedly rubbed off on the rest of the lineup, and especially the third line wingers, with Carl Soderberg and Reilly Smith combining for six goals and 19 points on the month.

For the Bruins, the depth returned. And my goodness is it tough to stop when it gets going.

“It’s hard to rely on the same people night in, night out to produce goals; everybody goes dry for a little bit and every line has their ups and downs. But when it’s spread out and you have an opportunity to get other lines to score for you, it makes a big difference,” said B’s coach Claude Julien. “And that’s what makes you a good team is that some teams, when their top lines go dry, that’s it; they struggle to score goals. But to me, we’ve got four lines right now that are capable of producing and that fourth line has scored some big goals for us but to me, that third line production is very close to the same production as the top two. So that gives us a pretty good line.”

A slump every now and then is inevitable, but it’ll be interesting to see if the Bruins can carry the momentum of November’s hot streak on into the holiday season. With 13 games on tap this month -- including a tour of Western Canada and tilts with the Canadiens, Penguins, and home-and-homes with both Buffalo and Ottawa -- there’s simply no way to dispute the importance of another strong month.

It could honestly, hyperbole considered here, make or break the division race for Boston. In ‘08, the Bruins followed up their hot November with a 12-1-0 month of December. In ‘11, they put in a solid 9-3-0 December. These months not only allowed the B’s to continue to gel while putting up twos in the standings on a nightly basis, but created much needed space in the division. And with the Bruins presently holding a three-point edge over the Wings for first, and just five points away from being in third or fourth, some extra breathing room wouldn’t hurt at all.

I’m sure the five-day layoff (the Bruins don't play again 'til Thursday in Montreal) won’t bother them, either.

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