Blackhawks

Bruins Blast Blackhawks in 6-2 Blowout at United Center

The Boston Bruins had lost six games in a row, but that didn’t stop them from hanging six goals on the Chicago Blackhawks on Sunday afternoon by a score of 6-2.

Patrice Bergeron scored a goal and dished out two assists in the game, and Milan Lucic scored for the Bruins as part of a four-goal second period explosion. Jonathan Toews and Bryan Bickell scored goals for the Blackhawks in the losing effort.

The first period got off to a rip-roaring start for the Blackhawks as they surrendered a goal early thanks to a series of defensive blunders. Both Duncan Keith and Michal Rozsival missed on their defensive assignments, and Bergeron got inside position on the play as he skated into the crease and forced a shot past Corey Crawford to put the Bruins up 1-0.

The Blackhawks got a couple of scoring chances after that goal, but Tuukka Rask was there to make a couple of key saves. Two of them came against Patrick Kane, who rifled a one-timer on the rush and saw Rask stop it with a sprawling save. Kris Versteeg also got a short-handed breakaway, but Rask made another save as he slapped his leg pads together to block the shot.

With about seven minutes to go in the period, the Bruins scored again. This time it was Loui Eriksson doing the damage, deflecting a Torrey Krug shot in from the point past Crawford to make it a two-goal cushion for Boston.

The period ended with a couple of tough breaks for the Hawks, including Niklas Hjalmarsson taking a Zdeno Chara slapshot directly to his midsection. Fortunately, the Bruins felt charitable at the end of the frame, as a Rask penalty gave the Hawks a power play chance that they immediately converted on. Kane got the puck at the blue line and fired in a shot toward the far post, and Toews was able to deflect the shot in to make it a 2-1 game after the first period.

The second period saw the Blackhawks give the Bruins a batch of chances, and they started taking advantage after a couple of unsuccessful Chicago power plays. Milan Lucic got things started about six minutes in as he drove in past all five Blackhawks defenders and scored a short-range goal to make it a 3-1 game.

Just six minutes later, the Bruins scored again as Gregory Campbell fired a shot past Crawford, leading Joel Quenneville to yank his goaltender and put Antti Raanta in the game.

Unfortunately for the Blackhawks, the move didn’t do much to help things out, and the Bruins scored two more goals before the period ended. Dougie Hamilton got the first on a power play to make it a 5-1 game, and two and a half minutes later Reilly Smith scored another one to give Boston a five goal advantage after two periods of play.

The third period was a slow-paced one for both teams, with the Blackhawks getting a late goal from Bickell with about six minutes left to cut the deficit to four goals.

The Blackhawks will try to rebound from the loss when they welcome the Florida Panthers to the United Center on Tuesday night to wrap up their eight game homestand.

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