It's been that kind of run.
Playing their first full game without Patrice Bergeron since his concussion Saturday, the trigger-happy Bruins (already missing a top-six forward in Marco Sturm and two top-four defensemen in Aaron Ward and Andrew Ference) kicked off a five-game road trip with a 6-3 win over St. Louis before 19,150 at the Scottrade Center.
"Huge. Huge," Manny Fernandez (29 saves), back in net after posting a 4-2 win over Carolina Saturday, said of the victory. "We've lost some key players. I think everybody knows us. In two nights like that, to have two good battles, and to come out with 4 points is really good."
It was the sixth time this season the Bruins have scored a six-spot or better. In comparison, the 2007-08 Bruins put up a six-pack only three times. Last season, the Bruins didn't have the kind of depth they feature this year.
They can call up Martin St. Pierre from Providence, give him 11:10 of ice time, see him play effectively against the Blues' top line, and assist on Vladimir Sobotka's third-period goal. They can throw Shane Hnidy onto the No. 2 power-play unit and see him net a man-advantage strike that helped Phil Kessel (assist on the play) stretch his scoring streak to 18 games. And they can see Blake Wheeler, who would have been a senior at the University of Minnesota this season, tuck two first-period pucks behind Legace in the first five minutes.
At 2:27 of the first, the rookie left wing, during a two-on-one rush, took a tape-to-tape pass from David Krejci (one of three helpers for the pivot, now officially the No. 2 center behind Marc Savard) and dumped a half-slapper behind Legace to give Boston a 1-0 lead.
Then after a tripping call on Milan Lucic (a penalty that should have been given to Fernandez), coach Claude Julien deployed Wheeler and Krejci on the kill. After Wheeler gained control of the puck, the wing looked back to Krejci, thinking he'd send a pass back to the center.
Krejci was gone.
"He kind of abandoned me," Wheeler said with a smile. "He went off for a change. So the only thing I could do was react."
You might call it that.
