Bruins Krejci Committed, Ready To Break Out
BOSTON (CBS) - With a goal and two assists by the time six minutes had passed in the third period Saturday, Bruins center David Krejci had already posted three times as many points in one game as he had totaled in his first eight games of the season.
For the man cast as Boston's No. 1 center, Krejci's performance against the Maple Leafs looked like a sure sign he was about to emerge from his scoring slump. And he could've easily coasted the rest of the way having already sufficiently added to his lone point on the season.
However, Krejci didn't want to spend the rest of the night relishing his offensive outburst in a 7-0 Bruins rout. He kept battling and even slid to block a Mike Komisarek shot in the closing minutes of the victory.
"I was trying to get out of minuses too a little bit," said Krejci, who's a minus-3 on the season after a plus-3 against the Leafs, after the Bruins practiced in Wilmington Sunday. "I felt like I was having a pretty good game, so I wanted to finish strong."
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There's finishing strong and there's also needlessly risking life and limb. What some outside observers might classify as nuts, though, is just one way Krejci decided to answer head coach Claude Julien's criticism from a couple weeks ago about not competing hard enough.
"I would look at it more like 'what a great play.' Because it didn't matter what the score was, he was committed to doing it," said Julien. "And I think that was more of a positive and something that a coach really enjoyed seeing, guys that played right until the end."
Krejci, Milan Lucic and Nathan Horton, who formed Boston's best offensive threesome during the Stanley Cup championship season, started slow in 2011-12. A Krejci core injury broke them up for a few games and when Krejci was healthy, he rejoined the lineup in a different slot. With Lucic starting to find his scoring touch, Julien reunited last year's first line prior to the October 29 game against Montreal.
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Lucic is now second on the team with six goals and Krejci has finally passed the likes of Johnny Boychuk, Joe Corvo and Daniel Paille on the Bruins' scoring charts. All Boston's top trio needs is for Horton to find his scoring touch.
"I think our game is getting there," said Krejci. "But we have to prove it every night, not just one night show up and then the next game disappear. We've got to build on the last game and then hopefully we can bring the momentum to the next one."
Matt Kalman covers the Bruins for CBSBoston.com. He operatesTheBruinsBlog.net and also contributes coverage to NHL.com and several other media outlets. Follow him on twitter @TheBruinsBlog.
