Boston Bruins
“We had a good day. They had a really bad day.”
Mark Kastelic might have said it best on Saturday afternoon as Pavel Zacha made his way back into Boston’s dressing room.
“It’s funny,” Kastelic said. “Pav came in and I said, ‘Imagine getting a hat trick and being the Third Star.’”
Sure enough, it was a testament to the lopsided box score that the Bruins etched on Saturday at TD Garden that Zacha — fresh off of scoring the first hat trick of his NHL career — was only the Third Star on Causeway Street.
The Second Star? David Pastrnak — who dished out a whopping six assists to tie a career-high scoring output in a single game.
And the First Star? Marat Khusnutdinov — who scored four goals of his own and added a helper to finish with five points, and the first hat trick of his career.
“It’s awesome,” Khusnutdinov said after Boston’s eventual 10-2 win over the Rangers. “Lucky day for me. Thank you, partners.”
After suffering a lopsided 6-2 loss at the hands of New York in Boston’s annual Black Friday game in November, the Bruins exacted some revenge against their Original Six foe with a record-setting performance on Saturday afternoon.
“We had a good day. They had a really bad day,” Marco Sturm said.
Saturday stood as the first time that the Bruins have scored 10 goals in a single game since Oct. 16, 1988 — a blowout win over the Blackhawks where Cam Neely scored a hat trick and added four assists.
With both Zacha and Khusnutdinov scoring their first career hat tricks, Saturday marked the first time two Bruins have scored hat tricks in the same game since Jan. 18, 1964.
“It took longer than I thought it would,” the 28-year-old Zacha said of finally scoring his first hat trick. “I’m just trying to play a two-way game.”
“I had to be really young,” he added of the last time he lit the lamp three times. “I was always more of a passer, so that never really had hat tricks growing up.”
By the time Zacha scored his third goal of the game with 8:34 still remaining in the second period, there wasn’t exactly a deluge of hats that landed on the TD Garden ice.
There might have been some confusion for those in the stands over how many goals Zacha had scored at that point — as his second tally was confirmed via video review at the end of the first period.
That power-play goal was only confirmed after the opening period ended, prompting the Rangers to come back out on the ice to replay the final 33 seconds of the opening frame.
“You gotta work with the crowd. We need more hats on the ice,” Sturm said. “They probably left too early on that second goal.”
The Garden crowd didn’t hold back by the time Khusnutdinov tipped home a Pastrnak feed for his third goal of the day just 3:51 into the third period.
“He’s a great teammate,” Mark Kastelic said of Khusnutdinov. “Everybody loves him, and he’s fun to be around. Just kudos to him. I mean, from day one, he hasn’t been given anything, and he’s worked hard for everything.”
The Bruins came very close to becoming the first team since the Los Angeles Kings in 1992 to have three hat tricks in a single game, as rookie forward Fraser Minten also scored two goals in the victory.
He didn’t find the back of the net, but Pastrnak also landed in the record books with his playmaking prowess against New York.
Pastrnak’s six assists tied a franchise record that had also been set by Bobby Orr (1973) and Ken Hodge (1971), with the star winger also trying Orr for seventh on the team’s all-time scoring list at 888.
“I like to make plays,” Pastrnak acknowledged. “Growing up, I was more of a playmaker, and then obviously in the NHL, it flipped a little bit. So I like to score goals, don’t get me wrong, but most of the time, if I see somebody in a better position than me to score, and I always try to pass.”
As fans chanted “We Want 10!” in the closing minutes of the game, Khusnutdinov obliged by tipping another Pastrnak shot home with 1:29 left in regulation.
The Bruins don’t have much time to rest on their laurels after Saturday’s offensive onslaught, as Boston will host the Penguins on Sunday at 5 p.m.
“Super proud of our group. We went down early. And we held it together and made a good response,” Pastrnak said. “And then we were playing with the lead and focused on our game. Definitely, you enjoy the moment of — you look around the Garden and see the fans are enjoying the [game].
“As a player, this kind of game doesn’t happen very often, so it is important to soak it in. But at the same time, we have a new game tomorrow, and we’re gonna have to flip the page.”
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