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The Patrice Bergeron breakout game |
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You knew it was only a matter of time.
Without a goal through his first seven games, Patrice Bergeron responded Thursday night with a four-goal performance. Three of Bergeron’s four goals came on the power play, notching the natural—power play—hat trick by the end of the second period.
“It’s a matter of time. He’s such a dominate player in this league. He’s had a lot of good looks early on, sometimes they go in, sometimes they don’t” said Brad Marchand who assisted on all four of Bergeron’s goals.
“Everything he touched tonight went in.”
Seeing as it’s, you know, Bergeron, the scoreless drought wasn’t too concerning, rather odd instead. It’s been a generally slow start for the majority of the Bruins top goal scorers, especially on the power play, the Bruins offensive bread and butter.
That all changed in a flash.
"Sometimes you get one and it snowballs a little when you haven’t gone well,” said head coach Bruce Cassidy. “You knew sooner or later that would happen.”
The Red Wings had no answers for the Bruins top power play unit, allowing Bergeron all the time and space he needed for the power play trifecta.
“Something we saw on video is that the middle of the ice is open and the guys stuck to the plan there,” added Cassidy. “I thought our power play had practiced better this week. Get back to what we do well. I think the way Detroit killed set up well for us, we like to start in the slot.”
After a 2-19 start to the season on the power play, the Bruins have since converted on four of their last six man advantages, looking more like the fluid unit we expected with Taylor Hall and Charlie McAvoy joining the Bergeron line in the top power play group.
Getting power play shots on goal was an issue during the Bruins early season power play woes, with a league worst 23. In their last two contests, the Bruins have landed 13. Part of that recent success Marchand says is due to more time together, and guys such as Hall and McAvoy getting more comfortable in their roles on the power play.
“I think the big thing for us is we just needed a little bit of time to get more comfortable with each other out there. With [Hall] being net-front and [McAvoy] on the backend, you kind of expect it to fall in place, but [Hall] is playing a different position, [McAvoy] really hasn't played the top on our team before,” he said. “It takes a little bit of time for us to get comfortable.”
Even though Bergeron was having a hard time adding tallies to the goal column, Bergeron knows his contributions to the team go beyond goals and assists.
While Bergeron may have been lacking in the goals department entering Thursday’s 5-1 victory over the Red Wings, he was his usual self in the other parts of his game that have made him the player he is today.
“You can’t just look at that for his game, he’s such a tough player to play against all-around the ice and does so many god things defensively, on the PK, five-on-five,” said Marchand. “Just because Bergy goes through a stretch where maybe he doesn’t score like he’s used to, he’s still so effective for our team— [he’s] the heart and soul of our team.
Beginning the night without a goal, all it took was three periods for Bergeron to tie Marchand for the team lead in goals with four.
It's the second career four-goal game for Bergeron, the first coming on January 6, 2018 against the Carolina Hurricanes.
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