Bruins Vs. Canadiens: Lars Eller’s Two Goals Leads To Canadiens 4-1 Victory

Once a major injury happens in any game, the rest of the actual game play is overshadowed by the moment that happened on the ice. That was apparent with the third period of the Bruins and Canadiens game as both teams skated a very quick period that saw some offense, but very little else.

Montreal’s Lars Eller had his first career two goal game as he scored the first two goals of the game for the Canadiens in the first period. Travis Moen recorded assists on both goals while Paul Mara had an assist on Eller’s first and Andrei Kostitsyn had an assist on Eller’s second. For Montreal, that was all that was needed in the scoring department, but the team added two more goals in the second period, both on the powerplay. Brian Gionta recorded his fourth powerplay goal of the season at the 7:15 mark while James Wisniewski had his goal at the 15:09 mark of the period.

There are two things that Tuesday night’s Bruins/Canadiens game are not going to have that the last one did, goals and penalty minutes. Through two periods, the Canadiens and Bruins have combined for goals and penalty minutes, well off their pace in the last game.

Brian Gionta got the lone goal in the second period on the powerplay as both David Krejci and Zdeno Chara try and keep the puck out of the net and still inadvertently bounce the puck off the goaltender and back in the net. The goal was assisted by Scott Gomez and Tomas Plekanec and was Gionta’s fourth powerplay goal of the season. The Canadiens second goal of the period and fourth of the game came from James Wisniewski while assists came from Mike Cammaleri and David Desharnais

It took a total of 3:11 for these two teams to get back to where they were the last time they met. Johnny Boychuk and Ryan White fought 3:11 into the first period after White took liberties with a hit that Boychuk laid on someone else.

On the scoresheet, the Canadiens have found the back of the net first with two Lars Eller goals, the first of which came less than a minutes after a Bruins powerplay ended. Eller’s first goal was assisted by Travis Moen and Paul Mara. Eller’s second goal came nine minutes later with the only assist coming from Travis Moen, his second of the game.

The Canadiens are six goals away from scoring 11,000 home goals which may be reached in this game, because in their last matchup these two teams combined for 14 total goals, an 8-6 Boston win. It was the first time since 1981 that two teams combined for 14 or more goals and more than 180 penalty minutes in the same game.

It is expected to be the same goaltenders in net for both teams since their last matchup. Tim Thomas is 9-14-4 against the Canadiens in his career while Carey Price is 12-3-2 with a 2.64 goals against average and .916 save percentage against the Bruins.