Irked Bruins find Rangers ‘a little disrepectful'

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BOSTON – The Bruins clearly didn’t care for the antics of a young, scrappy New York Rangers team when the two clubs tangled on Wednesday night.

The Bruins pounded the Blueshirts in the third period with four goals en route to a 6-3 win at TD Garden and David Pastrnak dominated the scoring with his third hat trick of the season. Still, there was also some nastiness as New York rookie Lias Andersson tangled with Patrice Bergeron when he backed into throwing Bergeron a hit while leaving his skates in the corner. Bergeron sidestepped the oncoming rookie body checker taking a run at him and then tackled Andersson to the ice while giving him a piece of his mind.

The refs sent both players to the box with penalties while the Bruins still got a power play out of the situation, but then New York agitator Brendan Lemieux got involved with the team that his dad Claude routinely messed with back in the day. Lemieux got into a war of words with Bruins captain Zdeno Chara from the opposing benches, and cameras caught Lemieux yelling “Try me!” to the 6-foot-9 D-man while he was planted firmly on the bench.

When it was all over, it was clear that the Bruins didn’t appreciate the upstart Rangers showing a pretty obvious lack of respect for esteemed players Chara and Bergeron.

“Listen, this is a time of year where you can’t get goofy either, so it has to be a controlled response," said Bruins coach Bruce Cassidy.  "I thought we did that by taking care of business on the scoreboard and then trying to assert ourselves physically throughout the period when the situation dictated. They have a lot of young players there, a little bit disrespectful I think, at times, but if that’s their makeup, that’s their makeup.

“I don’t know them as players and if that motivates them, but at the end of the day I thought we handled it well. “

The Bruins “handled it” in the third period when David Backes throttled Andersson against the boards in the corner, and repeatedly challenged the rookie until he clearly got the message that No. 37 wasn’t somebody the Rangers should be messing with. It will be interesting to see if any of this stuff spills over into a lasting rivalry, but it’s pretty clear that New York’s young players have gotten the Bruins attention for their future meetings. 

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