In Boston, the Montreal Canadiens were looking to gain some ground in the chase for the second wild card spot in the Eastern Conference.
Instead, they surrendered a hat trick to David Pastrnak in a 4-1 loss to the Bruins on Wednesday night.
David Pastrnak had a hat trick for the Bruins – file photo by Lewis Bleiman
“Well, obviously you know I’m happy for that,” Pastrnak said. “It’s something that I haven’t accomplished yet in my career, so obviously excited, but I’ve said I couldn’t have done it without my teammates, and big thanks to them and just keep it rolling.”
Tuukka Rask made 28 saves in the win.
Nick Suzuki scored the lone goal for the Habs.
“At times I thought when we were playing fairly well we had opportunities to shoot the puck at the net and we looked at other plays instead,” Montreal coach Claude Julien said. “We need to shoot the puck a little more, we need to go to the net a bit more and be probably a little hungrier in that part of it because the rest of it, we were doing some good things and we’re competing hard but we just weren’t good enough tonight, not good enough to win.”
Patrice Bergeron added an empty net goal to put the punctuation mark on the affair.
“We just caught them kind of flat-footed,” Boston’s Todd Marchand said. “And when I kind of got through, ‘Pasta,’ he was kind of all alone. I knew if I got it over he’d get it in — he doesn’t miss those plays — so luckily he finished it.”
[WATCH: All Canadiens vs. Bruins highlights]
Carey Price made 34 saves in the loss.
“They’re a well-structured team. They play tight, they don’t give up much,” Canadiens forward Brendan Gallagher said. “That’s why they are where they are right now. They made it tough on us and we weren’t able to counter it enough to get around their goalie. And obviously once they scored the first goal, they’re comfortable in this building.”
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