The Boston Bruins (32-20-3) completed a perfect home January, demolishing the Philadelphia Flyers (24-20-9) 6-3 inside TD Garden on Thursday night.
The game itself was seldom in question. The Flyers played in Columbus last night, and looked every bit a team on the second half of a road back-to-back.
Meanwhile, the Bruins rested up and prepared to go up 9-0-0 at home in January, something they clinched tonight. Of those nine wins, eight came in regulation. Pure dominance.
The Bruins dominated early and broke the ice just ahead of the midway point of the first period. 41 seconds later, it was 2-0, and that was all she wrote.
The Bruins pushed it to 3-0, 5-1, and eventually 6-2 before a late consolation for the Flyers.
Fraser Minten quickly becomes the star of the show, with a goal and two assists, giving him 16 points in his last 15 games. His role only continues to expand, and it's going to expand even more after tonight.
Beyond Minten, Viktor Arvidsson, Pavel Zacha, Casey Mittelstadt, Tanner Jeannot, and Marat Khusnutdinov all tallied for the Bruins in the win.
Jeremy Swayman made 33 saves in the win, another solid performance for Boston's superstar netminder.
Samuel Ersson allowed five goals on 20 shots before getting pulled at the end of the second period. Ex-Bruin Dan Vladar made six relief saves in the third period.
However, it wasn't all good news for Boston.
For a second straight game, the Bruins lost a key center. Zacha, later after his goal, exited in the second period with an upper-body injury and did not return. The injury comes just two days after the Bruins lost Elias Lindholm to an upper-body injury.
It's a loss the Bruins can ill afford. Beyond Boston, the timing couldn't be worse. The NHL goes on break in just over a week, and both Lindholm and Zacha are slated to partake in the Olympics.
Nothing would be worse than either of them missing out due to an injury this close to the tourney.
Bruins goals:
Arvidsson started the party in the first period off of a gorgeous passing play, begun by Minten.
41 seconds later, Zacha doubled the lead, again the result of pristine passing. Morgan Geekie with a total seeing-eyes pass, while Jonathan Aspirot collected the first of two assists on the night.
Just two-and-a-half minutes into the second period, Minten beat Ersson five-hole with a nice release. Ersson would want that one back, though.
Late in the second and now only up 3-1, the Bruins hunted for more insurance. As fate would have it, Minten made another unreal play. He teed up Andrew Peeke with a cross-ice feed that somehow Ersson stopped.
Ersson couldn't stop Mittelstadt on the rebound, who made a nice play.
2:28 later, Jeannot deflected a Peeke shot for a 5-1 lead, a dominant lead that Philly never had a chance at erasing.
Philly stole one about 30 seconds later to make it 5-2 heading into the third.
It didn't matter. Not with the Bruins entering 25-0-2 (now 26-0-2) when leading after two periods. Not with Swayman in net.
The game was over, and it felt like it the entire third. Khusnutdinov tucked in an empty netter after Charlie McAvoy launched one down the ice and bounced to Khusnutdinov.
After that, Matvei Michkov scored a power-play goal with 1:41 to go, a true consolation goal.