They are them. The Boston Bruins are the most talented and complete team in all of hockey this season. Boston defeated Columbus by the final score of 4-2 yesterday afternoon.

David Pastrnak opened the scoring on his charge to his well deserved pay raise with goal number 20. His powerplay goal was assisted by Hampus Lindholm and Brad Marchand.

To trade powerplay goals, Columbus opened their scoring with a second period goal from captain Boone Jenner for his 11th of the campaign. Johnny Gaudreau and Patrik Laine had the helpers.

David Krejci responded for the Bruins with the third powerplay goal of the game. Krejci’s go-ahead tally was credited for his 9th of the year; Charlie McAvoy and Taylor Hall had the apples.

Taylor Hall would get the eventual game winning goal for his 13th on the season. Pasta and Krejci had the cookies.

Tomas Nosek got the back breaking goal for his 3rd this year. Derek Forbort and Craig Smith had the assists on the Bruins’ last goal of the game.

Columbus would close the game scoring with another powerplay goal. Patrik Laine’s one timer was his 9th of the season; Marcus Bjork and Johnny Hockey had the assists.

Patrice Bergeron was my Bruins’ player to watch. He was a plus one with three shots on goals for 18:24TOI. Bergeron had a 70% success rate in the faceoff rate.

Gustav Nyquist was my Columbus player to watch, given his unknown future with the Blue Jackets. Goose had a minus one rating with 2 blocks and giveaways in 17:03TOI.

Jeremy Swayman was in the goalkeeper crease for Boston, stopping 31 of 33 shots for a 0.939 save percentage.

Youngster Daniil Tarasov started once again for the Columbus Blue Jackets this season, stopping 35 of 39 shots for a 0.897 save percentage.

CBJ THREE STARS OF THE GAME

1. Boone Jenner — PPG (11); career goal #155

2. Patrik Laine — PPG (9), assist (6); career goal #185

3. Johnny Gaudreau — 2 assists (23)

Notes

The third period is their weakness this season, allowing 6 goal in the final frame just on this mini road trip, and 12 in December alone.

They only scored one even strength goal this trip, and three total in 180 minutes of action. They’re allowing way too many goals, being the first Eastern Conference team to be at -40 in the goal differential.

Sure the fractured defense is a problem, and all three goalies have been injured at some point throughout the calendar year; however, there needs to be more out of this team’s depth and offense to win a couple more games.

Elvis is in the midst of the yipes and worst season of his North American career. Even worse, he is in the first year of a five-year, $27M million dollar contract with a modified no trade clause. In 14 games, he has a 0.864 save percentage and a 4.68 goals against average.

This team has a lot of players on multi-year deals, and should push the veterans with pending deals to play more ice time to get the most value out of them, as they may be lucky to get a good draft selection out of one or all of Gustav Nyquist, Vladislav Gavrikov, Gavin Bayreuther, and Joonas Korpisalo.

What say you on the Union Blue this season? Back-to-back games upcoming between the Stars and Flyers. More to come…

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