The hard-rock Lucic, without a fight all season, met up with Komisarek near center ice at 7:25 of the third period, the Bruins holding a fait accompli 5-1 lead over their hated rivals. The 6-foot-4-inch Komisarek, often the aggressor in last spring's playoffs, traded a couple of shots in the early going and then crumbled like a stale, flaky croissant under a flurry of swift, heavy right hands from Lucic. A screaming, waving Lucic made his way to the penalty box, where he slammed both arms against the glass before taking a seat.
"It was big for us," noted Bruins goalie, and Montreal resident, Manny Fernandez, who made a relatively carefree 27 stops. "Any time you can back them off and make them think about it, it's good."
Back the Habs off they did, and in a hurry, on the strength of first-period goals by Shawn Thornton (first of the season), Yelle, and Sturm (first of a pair of power-play strikes). Not only did franchise goalie Carey Price look flustered, but the entire CH squad looked mesmerized, as if they expected the home team to show up sleepwalking and ripe to be steamrolled after touching down from Chicago at 3 a.m. yesterday.
Instead, the Bruins carried the play right from the opening faceoff and took their first giant step toward the win when Thornton, stoned on 26 shots the first 15 games, slipped a backhander past Price with 2:31 gone.
"Nice finally to get that monkey off my back," said Thornton, who assisted on Yelle's goal at 17:00, bumping the lead to 2-0.
Prior to the Yelle strike, Komisarek, who began to embrace the villain's role in Round 1 of the playoffs, tried to goad the powerful Lucic into a fight with some pushing and cross-checks to the chest. Lucic would have none of it. Komisarek taunted him at least once more, but the disciplined Lucic resisted temptation.
