Brad Marchand OK after vicious hit to head

He tucks his elbow but takes a bad angle, making contact up high with the Bruins forward.

With goals from Zdeno Chara and Ryan Spooner in the first 5:51 of the night Thursday, the Bruins appeared well on their way to blowing out the struggling Avalanche at TD Garden. However, Blake Comeau chased down the puck into the Boston zone and fed former Bruin Carl Soderberg with a great pass and Soderberg blew it past goaltender Tuukka Rask. Of course, the tempers were all over the place after the play, as they probably should have been.

Colorado Avalanche captain Gabriel Landeskog had his night cut short after he landed a risky hit on Bruins winger Brad Marchand on Thursday. He felt good enough, in fact, to lash out with a sudden, gloved right hand punch that caught Landeskog flush and knocked him to the ice.

This one wasn’t quite as ugly, and Marchand escaped injury – though Landeskog was assessed a match penalty for an illegal hit to the head. With the call, Landeskog was out for the rest of the game.

The Avalanche dominated the subsequent four on four play, with a flurry of shots on net, yet came away without a goal.

Boston was awarded a three-minute power play after Marchand’s penalty expired, but surprisingly they could not score, although they did have six shots on goal during the power play.

Spooner gave the Bruins a power-play goal for the eighth straight game.

Beauchemin tied it with 29 seconds remaining.

Patrick Roy rolled out mix and match lines throughout the third period to cover for the loss of Landeskog.

Boston was never able to get an extended period of pressure on Berra, even with an extra skater in the last two minutes of play with Rask pulled.

Marchand, who did not leave the game and said he was OK afterward, missed two games last month after suffering a concussion in Boston’s second game of the season. Kevan Miller coughed up the puck to Mikhail Grigorenko on a third period play, with Grigorenko setting up a Matt Duchene goal to break a 2-2 tie. I didn’t have any feeling that we were panicking out there. “I thought we were under control”.

Chara’s goal didn’t come from his patented bomb, but rather a changeup flung towards the Avalanche net with Reto Berra down and out on his back following an incredible kick-save on a first-look opportunity from a net-crowding Patrice Bergeron and Boston offense. The team found a way to win, instead of a way to lose, and battled back from a two goal deficit by scoring three unanswered goals.

Marchand did absolve Landeskog of delivering a deliberate dirty hit.