Bruins’ Winter Classic Ends In Disaster Against More Focused Canadiens

The Montreal Canadiens handed the Bruins the most lopsided defeat in NHL Winter Classic history Friday afternoon, routing their hosts 5-1 before a crowd of 67, 246 at Gillette Stadium.

Paul Byron scored twice, and Brendan Gallagher returned from two broken fingers and had a goal and an assist for Montreal.

Blackhawks 4, Avalanche 3: Jonathan Toews scored a power-play goal at 3:29 of overtime as Chicago ended a four-game losing streak to Colorado.

It would be convenient for the Bruins if they could cite the full Gillette Stadium experience and claim they got stuck in pregame Route 1 traffic and were late arriving for the start of yesterday’s Winter Classic.

Condon’s mask had pictures of Brady and Belichick, New England’s four Super Bowl trophies and their motto: “Do your job”. “I was pretty happy and hopefully I had some mojo there on my helmet … huge fan of his, huge fan of this organization and I was just happy to pay respect to them”. “All over the ice I thought we just took care of the puck”, said assistant captain P.K. Subban. To end the period, Ryan Spooner waited too long for Mike Condon to adjust in goal and his wrist shot found Condon’s glove just before the final horn of the second period.

The Bruins and Celtics filled the Boston Garden rafters with championship banners. “They were first to the puck the whole first period and for most of the game, even in the second period”.

The Winter Classic is in full swing and David Decharnais and the Montreal Canadiens tallied the first point.

Boston was outshot 14-3 in the first period.

“We obviously didn’t deserve to win”. It was bad. You would think that, especially when we’re missing guys like we are, you’d have to play hard and stick with the system. “We had to find something to get back into the game and it wasn’t happening. It’s easy to say for the winning team that scores five goals – I don’t know how they feel on the other side – but for us, definitely the ice was great”. “We’re back to the lines that were successful with the Plekanec line (Tomas Plekanec between Max Pacioretty and Gallagher) doing good, but also all the other lines”.

The mask features the likenesses of Patriots stars such as Rob Gronkowski, Julian Edelman and, of course, Tom Brady.

2 minutes into the second period Boston gave up another goal as Montreal dominated. They also passed the Florida Panthers for top spot in the division.

The Winter Classic is an annual celebration of the game of hockey.

Montreal is now three points up on Boston, who sits in third place in the Atlantic with three games in hand.

He made some key saves and held the Canadiens to only one goal in the first. As the period went on and a few flakes of snow fell, the rough stuff started as it usually does between these two teams as Jimmy Hayes and Lars Eller were sent to their respective locker rooms for fighting.