NHL: Boston Bruins Back To Playing Old-Time Hockey

On Thursday night at TD Garden, the Boston Bruins needed a bounce back game after losing 3-0 to the Anaheim Ducks earlier in the week.  Two seconds into the game, a fight erupted between tough guys Shawn Thornton and Eric Boulton, setting the tone for the contest.

The first goal of the game came exactly three minutes in on a play where the Atlanta defense got too aggressive and allowed Patrice Bergeron to get a shorthanded breakaway where he put away the puck like we know he can.

In the second period, Boston's Michael Ryder hit an early power-play goal, and less than a minute later, Shawn Thornton got a nice backhander to make it 3-0 Bruins.  Maybe the Bruins got a little bit excited as they allowed Dustin Byfuglien to get an easy goal and trim the deficit to two.

About five minutes into the third period, the Bruins put the game out of reach with Shawn Thornton scoring his second of the night and a career-high seventh of the season, and we're only about halfway through the season! 

With a little over four minutes left in the game, Milan Lucic took a big hit (it probably should have been a high-sticking penalty) and a huge brawl erupted between all 10 players on the ice, with the goalies being the only ones to sit out the action.  After the game, Lucic said that the Thrashers' Meyer had done that to him before.

Towards the end of the game, all 17,565 at TD Garden were chanting, "We want Thornton! We want Thornton!" and some of them booed when he came off during a line change.  

The Bruins ended up winning 4-1 through solid defensive play and creating great opportunities, including two breakaways.  If the Bruins continue to play like this, they have a great chance at beating out the Habs for the division title.  

The question is, can they? TD Garden has been sold out every game this calender year for the first time since 1972.  This creates a great home-ice advantage.

It will be interesting to see how they play heading into a stretch where five out of six games are on the road.