Bergeron busts out with four goals for Bruins

BOSTON-- It was only halfway through the game and Boston Bruins linemates Brad Marchand and David Pastrnak were already plotting.

They had seen the hats rain down at TD Garden, hugged and hugged and hugged and hugged, celebrating each of the four times Patrice Bergeron sent a puck past a Carolina Hurricanes goaltender. But they wanted more.
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"We were hoping to get him to six," Marchand said. "It didn't work out."
Bergeron wouldn't quite get there. Instead, he had to settle for four, an NHL career high for the center, who with an assist tied his NHL career high of five points, in a 7-1 win against the Carolina Hurricanes on Saturday.

"He had four," Boston coach Bruce Cassidy said. "He might have been able to have six. He had some really quality looks."
Bergeron's voice was froggy after the game, not from yelling or celebrating, though he could have been excused for doing either. That's not Bergeron's style, never has been. Instead, it was scratchy because of illness, something that made him among the most pleased that the game Thursday against the Florida Panthers was postponed because of the snowstorm in the region.
It gave him time to rest, to recover -- "I wasn't feeling so hot that day," he admitted -- and allowed him to be ready for the game against the Hurricanes.
"It's pretty impressive," Marchand said. "Any time you can get four goals in a game -- three is impressive -- so being part of this one and seeing him have the game he had, it was definitely up there."
Though, as Marchand said, "I think the Olympics, him winning the Cup, and him just being Patrice Bergeron is above that."
It was Bergeron's first NHL hat trick since his first one, Jan. 11, 2011 against the Ottawa Senators,
and the first time in nearly two decades that a Bruins player scored four in a game, when Dave Andreychuk did so Oct. 28, 1999 against the Tampa Bay Lightning.

And it was the first time Bergeron had done so since, he believed, he was 16 years old. Not that that is the way his teammates measure his success.
"It's not just a night like tonight, it's every night," Boston captain Zdeno Chara said. "He does so much for this hockey club, for this organization, and every night he's working very hard, he plays a 200-foot game, and he does all those little things that we ask from him and goes above and beyond every night.
"Very happy for him that he had the night that he had and he got rewarded by scoring really [great] goals and making great plays. You can only be happy for a player like that that gives so much for the team."
The Bruins are 8-0-2 in their past 10 games, 11-1-2 in their past 14, and 17-3-2 in their past 22. They have won based on a number of players, of lines, of ways. It has not always been their first line, the Bergeron line. It has been everyone.
"Good for that line," Cassidy said. "I told them in the room that they're probably getting tired of reading about [Sean] Kuraly and [Riley] Nash supplying all the offense, so they said the heck with that."
And scored. And scored. And scored. And scored. And scored.
Bergeron's first goal came shorthanded at 3:14 the first period, with the center snapping a shot glove-side on Hurricanes starter Cam Ward, who was pulled from the game after giving up two goals on two shots in the first 5:43. After Nash, Pastrnak and Jake DeBrusk started the turn toward a rout, Bergeron finished it against Scott Darling. There was a second goal at 14:34 of the first period, from near the top of the right circle, and another at 5:36 of the second, which caused the hats to drop.
The fourth, which made him the 16th Bruins player to score that many in a game, came at 10:45 of the second. It was Bergeron's fifth point and Marchand's fourth, three of them primary assists on Bergeron's first three goals.
"They were fun to watch when they got puck possession," Cassidy said of the line that includes Pastrnak. "They end up getting to the net with numbers and in the slot, high-percentage shots. Just amazing to watch Bergy get his shot off from there. But if you're at Warrior [Ice Arena] enough (for practice), you'll see him working on it every morning skate, getting that quick release."

It is part of why he is so good. Part of why his line is so good.
It's a line that is clicking -- almost always, really -- on a team that is clicking.
"They're the best line in hockey," Bruins defenseman Torey Krug said. "When you have them on your team and they're feeling it, you just kind of sit back and get the puck in their hands and let them do the work. It's obviously a lot of fun to watch them play."