New Jersey became the latest team to learn the hard way just how good the reigning Stanley Cup champions are when they were thoroughly dominated 6-1 by the Bruins Wednesday night in Newark.
"Hey, that's the Stanley Cup champion," New Jersey coach Peter DeBoer said in his postgame news conference. "They're healthy. They're well rested. That's the bar. That was a good lesson for how high the bar is and what we have to do to get there."
Not many teams have come close to clearing that bar, not in the last couple months anyway. After shaking off their Cup hangover in October, the Bruins are now 22-3-1 since the start of November. They have the top-ranked offense in the league, averaging 3.50 goals a game, and the lowest team goals-against average at 1.89. Their power play and penalty kill are both ranked in the top 10 and their plus-60 goal differential is 20 better than the second-place team in that category.
Six of those goals were scored Wednesday against future Hall of Fame netminder Martin Brodeur, who couldn't help but marvel at the depth of the Bruins attack.
"They were strong around our net," Brodeur said. "They got some wide-open shots. They made some great plays, got some tips, got some traffic, got some bounces. We're not the only team that they've done that to this year.
"They go to the net and you know what? They scored six and they missed about three backdoor plays," Brodeur added. "Guys had good chances at it. That's just the kind of offense they have. And it comes from all the lines. Even though they wanted to put their fourth line out there, they still outmuscled everybody in our zone, especially on that sixth goal they made a good play."
The Bruins don't have anyone in the top 30 in the league scoring race. What they do have is a balanced attack far more difficult to contain than teams reliant on one or two superstars. Boston has nine players with 20 or more points already this year, and on Wednesday night, that depth was on display once again.
The Bruins had 11 different players collect points, with at least one member of each line getting on the scoresheet. Patrice Bergeron led the way with a pair of goals, scoring a highlight-reel tally on a breakaway and another off a nice setup by linemate Brad Marchand, who circled behind the net before finding Bergeron in front for a one-timer in the slot.
But Boston also got its nominal top line contributing again, with David Krejci, Milan Lucic and Nathan Horton combining for two goals and four assists. Horton had one of the goals and was a plus-2 on the night, while Krejci had a goal and an assist and was a plus-1. That put both men at even for the season, meaning that Boston now does not have a single player currently on its roster who is a minus on the year.
But most teams have top two lines that can score. The real difference for the Bruins comes from the strength of their bottom six, and the fourth line proved real difference makers on Wednesday.
Shawn Thornton set the tone early with a marathon scrap with Devils tough guy Cam Janssen, then chipped in the final goal off a feed from Daniel Paille, who also used his speed to create several other chances. Gregory Campbell also had Boston's first goal, answering an early New Jersey strike and beginning a run of six unanswered goals for the Bruins. That trio finished the night combining for three points, four shots, eight hits and a plus-5 rating.
"It's not as if we weren't prepared," New Jersey captain Zach Parise said. "We knew what we were getting into. It's the best team in the league, the best team in hockey right now. So we knew what we were getting into. If you make mistakes against a team like that, they have so many guys that can score.
"They have depth, they have a lot of depth," Parise added. "They can keep playing four lines all game and all their lines are capable of scoring."
After a rare stumble in Dallas on Saturday, the Bruins were back to form on Wednesday, and yet another team learned just how tough it is to compete with Boston when it is on its game.
"We got our butts kicked out there, you can't really sugarcoat it any other way," Brodeur said. "They really dictated things. … We wanted to measure ourselves to the top team, and we failed."
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