Hat tricks in the NHL don't come along often. Scoring three goals in a playoff game with a potential trip to the Stanley Cup Finals on the line are even rarer.
But Krejci's three-goal effort Wednesday night in Tampa isn't one he'll want to remember as it came in a painful 5-4 loss to the Lightning, who forced a Game 7 back in Boston on Friday to decide the Eastern Conference final.
"It's always nice to score goals, but in playoffs it doesn't really matter," Krejci said. "You always want to do well, but a loss is a loss. Obviously it feels good [to get the hat trick], but I just have to forget about it."
Krejci gave the Bruins a 2-1 lead late in the first period when he perfectly picked the far right corner with a shot from left side. He added his second with a redirection of a Nathan Horton pass in front on the power play midway through the third as the Bruins scrambled to comeback from a two-goal deficit. And he capped the game's scoring when he pulled Boston within one again with 6:32 left from Milan Lucic and Tomas Kaberle.
"It was good to see," Lucic said of his linemate's big night. "He stepped up and had a big game. It sucks that you can't celebrate a great individual performance like that. It would be great if he could do the same thing next game."
The Bruins will need another big performance from the top line if they want to advance to the Cup Finals for the first time since 1990. Krejci, Lucic and Horton combined for all four of Boston's goals and added three assists to pace Boston's offensive effort.
"We generated a lot of offense," said Lucic, who had Boston's first goal. "We were moving our feet and we were supporting each other. We were going to the net and obviously Krech scoring three goals today was good, but not good enough."
The Bruins have one more chance to close out this series against the Lightning, and that's one more chance for Krejci and Co. to create some special memories they truly can savor.
"They were very good tonight," Bruins coach Claude Julien said. "That line needed to be big for us and they were. And that's certainly something that you can build on heading home, that if those guys play like that again, you like our chances."
