Video: David Krejci Hat Trick Opens Scoring, Ties and Wins Game for Bruins

David Krejci unleashed a stimulating wave of carbonation to commence the final full month and the fourth quarter of the Boston Bruins’ regular season Thursday night. In three periods and change, he eclipsed his total 13-game February output by one goal with his third career NHL hat trick, culminating in an overtime strike to bump the New Jersey Devils, 4-3.

It took a mere 73 seconds of game time for Krejci to convert a centering feed from new linemate Tyler Seguin.

With that, he granted Boston a 1-0 lead and gave the TD Garden masses its first rendition of “Kernkraft 400” in 19 days. The Bruins had entered Thursday night’s action having sandwiched a six-game road trip between two shutout losses on home ice.

Moments after Seguin supplied his own strike to augment the edge to 2-0, Krejci began to broaden his contributions to the Bruins’ cause. He drew a roughing penalty on Ryan Carter with 17:27 gone in the opening frame and later blocked a pair of Petr Sykora shots―one in the first minute of the second and one in the third period.

Neither the power play granted by Clarkson’s sin bin term nor Krejci’s defensive fortitude were enough to help Boston build upon its original 2-0 advantage or avoid spilling it before the second intermission. But with 14:30 to spare in regulation, Krejci tuned the mesh for the second time on four registered stabs at Martin Brodeur to draw a 3-3 knot.

He would not issue another bid until the 2:59 mark of the subsequent, bite-sized bonus round. But when he did, Krejci again approached Brodeur’s porch and hit 3-for-5 and delivered the walkoff strike.

The manner in which Krejci polished off this game and irrigated his recent drought both ought to evoke promising memories for Bruins’ buffs. Recall that, last spring, the top-six center mustered only a single goal and no assists in Boston’s come-from-behind, seven-game triumph over Montreal in the first round of the playoffs.

Not long after linemate Nathan Horton slugged home the series-deciding goal and the relieved and rejuvenated Bruins turned the page, Krejci cracked open everything he had apparently been storing over the preceding two weeks.

He piloted a 7-3 throttling of Philadelphia in Game 1 of the conference semifinals with two goals and two assists, including the game’s first goal off his twig. Two nights later, he ended a Game 2 comeback with an early, in-and-out overtime goal that required video review to confirm.

By tournament’s end, Krejci had crammed home a team-leading 12 goals and 23 points in 25 playoff games. In his first four NHL seasons, he has penned a lifetime scoring log of 19-25-44 in 52 postseason appearances.

Not unlike his overtime winner on May 2 of last year, his sudden-death conversion on March 1 of this year hurriedly nicked the interior of the net before popping back out. But the call was again confirmed with relative swiftness.