BOSTON – The Bruins have responded strongly after each of their losses under Bruce Cassidy to avoid any shred of a chance of a losing streak, and they did that exact thing again on Wednesday night.
The Bruins banished the Ottawa loss of a couple of days ago by scoring early and often while dominating the helpless Detroit Red Wings in a 6-1 spanking at TD Garden.
The B's have now won six of seven games on home ice under Cassidy, and scored six goals for the third time in 12 games since the coaching change.
Both David Krejci and Brad Marchand scored two goals apiece and helped the Black and Gold build a formidable four goal lead just 20 minutes into the game. Krejci started things off midway through the first period after undressing Danny DeKeyser on his way to the net. Brad Marchand scored almost exactly a minute later on a brilliant floating David Pastrnak pass that led No. 63 into the offensive zone.
Drew Stafford scored his first goal as a member of the Bruins later in the period, and it was that score that finally chased Detroit goalie Jared Coreau out of the game. Krejci finished the bevy of Boston goals in the first period after Pastrnak stripped Tomas Tatar below the goal line, and No. 46 pounced on a Dylan Larkin giveaway for the point blank score.
Marchand added a breakaway during 4-on-4 play in the second period for his career-high 70th point of the season, and that was offset by a meaningless score from Detroit defenseman Niklas Kronwall. Pastrnak finally added a spinning snipe of his own after an offensive zone face-off win, and then dropped his stick over the glass into the stands after he snapped it making contact with Nick Jensen on his follow-through.