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The stakes were not anything even remotely close to what they were on that fateful June night in 2011, but as the Boston Bruins skated off Vancouver’s ice on the right side of a vaguely familiar 4-0 final, Boston winger Brad Marchand seemed thoroughly under the skin of the Canucks.
It was the Bruins’ Marchand that opened up the game’s scoring with his 13th goal of the season, scored just 2:54 into the first period. It was Marchand that skated by Jacob Markstrom with the moving screen on Boston’s second goal of the period, a point blast from Torey Krug.
Marchand was even on the ice for Landon Ferraro’s second in a B’s uniform, and Boston’s third of the game. With the goal and an assist on fourth-line forward Tyler Randell’s third period dagger of a tally on Markstrom and the Canucks, the hometown kid (Ferraro is a native of Trail, British Columbia) pushed his run with Boston to two goals and four points in just six games played.
With the game out of hand, a frustrated Vancouver squad went for message-sending by way of Brandon Prust’s egregious spear to Marchand’s groin in the waning moments of the third.
Prust, familiar with the B’s from his time in both New York and Montreal, was assessed a 10-minute misconduct for the spear. Derek Dorsett and the Bruins’ Randell were handed tens one shift later.
Unfortunately for Prust, the spear meant nothing at the end of the night, as the B’s cruised for nearly 60 minutes behind a stifling defensive effort that held the Canucks to no more than seven shots in a period (Vancouver had five shots in both the first and third period and seven in the middle frame).
B’s goaltender Tuukka Rask turned aside all 17 shots thrown his way for his third shutout of the year, while the win gave the Bruins four of a possible six points on their three-game road trip.
NOTES: Bruins defenseman Adam McQuaid left the game after taking a Jared McCann shot after the wrist… B’s d-man Joe Morrow skated in his first game since Nov. 5… Jimmy Hayes was a healthy scratch for the first time all season… The Bruins also scratched defensemen Colin Miller and Dennis Seidenberg… Boston’s seven-game point streak (5-0-2) is their longest of the year.
Up next
The Bruins return home for a one-game quickie against the Nashville Predators at TD Garden. The Predators come to Boston with wins in just three of their last 10, and five wins in 13 road games.
Ty Anderson has been covering the National Hockey League for HockeyBuzz.com since 2010, has been a member of the Boston Chapter of the Pro Hockey Writers Association since 2013, and can be contacted on Twitter, or emailed at Ty.AndersonHB[at]gmail.com.