As you can imagine, the sold out TD Garden crowd was fired up and ready for #81’s return to the ice in blue and white. Toronto came out onto the ice about a minute before the Bruins did for pregame warmup, and just as he was in Boston, Kessel was the last one out on the ice. The crowd belted out a very loud boo when as his skate hit the ice. I brought a sign with me which read, “ALL I WANT FOR CHRISTMAS IS A KE$$EL KNOCKOUT!” The sign was a hit with Tim Thomas, Blake Wheeler, Matt Hunwick, Shawn Thornton and Mark Stuart as they read it and laughed. The whole team read it, but those guys visibly reacted to it. When I walked into section 325, I walked up the stairs holding my sign high to a very loud cheers and a standing ovation as everyone acknowledged the sign. People wanted to high-five me and tell me how awesome the sign was. Just before the Bruins pregame intro, the Toronto starting lineup was announced, and when PA announcer Jim Martin said, “At rightwing, #81 Phil Kessel!” the crowd booed for him as loud as for any player I can remember in recent memory. Before the game even began, I knew it was going to be a fun night at the Garden.
The game was underway and the Bruins were gunning for Kessel as Mark Recchi took a run at him on the first shift and just missed him, as did the crazy German, Marco Sturm. Every time Kessel touched the puck the fans booed very loudly, and as the night went on, every time he was on the ice, the fans chanted “KES-SEL" and "ASS-HOLE" at him. The Bruins jumped on the board less than five minutes into the game as Marco Sturm redirected a Derek Morris slapshot from the blueline for his ninth goal of the season and third in his last 3 games. As soon as the puck dropped after Sturm’s goal, Toronto goon Colton Orr and Sugar Shawn Thornton dropped the gloves; I'd had a strong feeling that this was coming as the two were chatting in warmups while stretching at center ice, and I figured it wasn’t about where they wanted to grab a beer after the game. The fight was a draw, as neither player has a tendency to lose fights. Thirty-three seconds later, the Bruins struck again as Marc Savard jumped on a rebound of a Zdeno Chara shot from the point and put it home, making it 2-0 B’s. After Boston had take a 2 goal lead, things started getting chippy; Blake Wheeler went to forecheck Ian White and pushed White into the boards feet first. Wheeler had no intentions of hurting White; White just lost his balance and went into the boards awkwardly, which initiated Jamal Mayers to go after Wheeler, which then led to Mark Stuart jumping in to defend his teammate. Stuart was thrown down to the ice pretty quickly, but I give Stuart credit for coming to the aid of his teammate. The Bruins went into the room up by 2.
The Bruins added to their lead right off the bat in the 2nd period as Toronto failed to fire the puck out of their zone. The puck was stopped by Zdeno Chara, who then took a few steps to his left and fired a blazing slapshot past goaltender Joey MacDonald. MacDonald never saw it as Mark Recchi once again set a great screen in front of the net. It was Chara’s second goal of the season and his first goal in about a month. The Bruins kept pouring it on as Michael Ryder went around the net and fed Marc Savard in the slot and Savard roofed his second goal of the night; it was also their first of two powerplay goals on the night. Starting fairly early in the second period, the Garden organ periodically began to play the Chicken Dance song, and the part when people usually clap, yours truly belted out, “PHIL KESSEL SUCKS!" That was a huge hit with everybody in 325 as they all started yelling it, and as the night went on, they kept playing the Chicken Dance song on the organ and the whole building was chanting “PHIL KESSEL SUCKS!” I usually don’t get this fired up about an opposing player coming, but I was never a Kessel fan to begin with; there was always something about him that bugged me and I never quite warmed up to him, and then when Chiarelli aired out all the dirty laundry about him, I lost any respect I had for him. One of my buddies who sits in my section was telling me that he read that in the time leading up to the Kessel trade, an anonymous Bruins player was quoted as saying, “I don’t give a s#%t if he stays or not, he’s a f#$%ing p#%*y.” I later researched it and found a similar quote. But back to the game; the Bruins went into the room up 4-0 with the Garden absolutely rocking!
The Bruins never let up on the scoring as Patrice Bergeron went end to end, blowing right past Toronto defenseman Mike Komisarek, and slid a pass over to Mark Recchi, who then netted his 550th career NHL goal. It was an amazing end to end rush and effort put forth by Bergeron; I must admit, I didn’t think I would see the emergence of Patrice Bergeron this quickly after recovering from two head injuries. Immediately after the goal, at center ice, Steve Begin dropped the gloves with Jamal Mayers; Mayers was clearly frustrated and took it out on Stevie B, but Begin got the best of him. The Bruins weren’t done scoring though! Johnny Boychuk took a beautiful drop pass from David Krejci, who carried the puck into the zone, and Boychuk stepped up and blasted his first career NHL goal past Toronto backup goaltender Vesa Toskala. Boychuk fired the puck so hard that he fell down. He has one of the heaviest shots on the team and played in only his 4th game of the season as Matt Hunwick was a healthy scratch after his poor game in Montreal the night before. Hunwick isn’t in the doghouse, but Julien said he’s been pressing and has had a couple bad games, and he wanted to get Boychuk some game action. Nineteen seconds after Boychuk scored, Marc Savard finished off his hat trick as he took the feed from Byron Bitz and floated a wrist shot from the faceoff circle on the off wing, deflecting the puck off of Toronto defenseman Luke Schenn. As you can imagine, the ice was littered with hats for Savard’s third career hat trick. The score was 7-0, the Garden was rocking, and Kessel was being taunted by 17,565 screaming Bruins fans. Toronto got two late goals in the final 5 minutes from Niklas Hagman and Mikhail Grabolvski, breaking up Tuukka Rask's shot at his third career shutout, resulting in a final score of 7-2! There were lots of Toronto fans in my section who remained very quiet, and they all had jerseys of players who hadn’t played in such a long time for Toronto such as Wendel Clark, Alyn McAulley, Doug Gilmour, Mats Sundin and Alexander Mogilny; those fans really took a verbal beating from us in 325. We kept thanking them for the potential #1 pick in the draft we should be obtaining this coming June in the Kessel deal. Toronto is well on their way to finishing dead last in the league.
My sign was a hit everybody except for the cameraman in my section, who told me my sign couldn’t be showed on the Jumbotron because it sent a violent message and lots of kids in the building liked Kessel when he was playing in Boston. However, I had people come up to me during the intermissions and during TV timeouts wanting their picture taken with me, which was pretty cool, I guess. Kessel Mania Round 2 hits Causeway Street this coming Thursday night, which promises to be just as much fun and hopefully as high scoring. I’m sure I will be reporting something very similar.
The Line Combinations were as follows…
- Blake Wheeler-Marc Savard-Byron Bitz
- Marco Sturm-Patrice Bergeron-Mark Recchi
- Vladimir Sobotka-David Krejci-Michael Ryder
- Daniel Paille-Steve Begin-Shawn Thornton
- Zdeno Chara-Derek Morris
- Dennis Wideman-Andrew Ference
- Mark Stuart-Johnny Boychuk
Scoring Summary…
- BOS: Marco Sturm assisted by Patrice Bergeron and Derek Morris
- BOS: Marc Savard assisted by Zdeno Chara and Byron Bitz
- BOS: Zdeno Chara- unassisted
- BOS: Marc Savard assisted by Marco Sturm and Michael Ryder (PPG)
- BOS: Mark Recchi assisted by Patrice Bergeron and Tuukka Rask (PPG)
- BOS: Johnny Boychuk assisted by David Krejci
- BOS: Marc Savard assisted by Blake Wheeler and Byron Bitz
- TOR: Niklas Hagman assisted by Francois Beauchemin and Matt Stajan
- TOR: Mikhail Grabovlski assisted by Jason Blake and Luke Schenn
Bruins Goal Videos…
- Sturm: The Heat Miser from A Christmas Without Santa Claus
- Savard: The Snow Miser from A Christmas Without Santa Claus
- Chara: Chris Farley dancing dressed as Santa Claus on SNL
- Savard: Spartan cheerleaders
- Recchi: The dancing bear
- Boychuk: Will Ferrell scoring a goal and celebrating in Elf
- Savard: Frosty the Snowman dancing
Warmup music…
- Jay-Z feat. Lil Wayne - “One Republic”
- Kanye West - “Stronger”
- Trick Daddy - “Let's Go”
- Rihanna feat. Jay- Z and Lil Wayne - “Run This Town”
- Eminem - “Lose Yourself”
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