Boston Bruins center Patrice Bergeron (37) puts the puck past Tampa Bay Lightning goalie Mike Smith (41) for a goal during the first period. (AP Photo/Elise Amendola)

Big and bad truly are back, it seems, after a 4-1 victory for the Bruins over the Tampa Bay Lightning tonight at the TD Garden. Bruins fans have a lot to be excited about lately, what with the recent success of the team that now has them perched atop the Northeast division, yesterday’s deal with Marc Savard to a relatively cheap seven-year contract extension yesterday, and the dynamic duo of goalies Tim Thomas and, when Timmy’s feeling old, youngster Tuukka Rask.

It’s about time things started looking up in a season that has already been full of ups and downs. Entering the season with the highest of expectations, the B’s have seen their leading scorer Marc Savard go down for a month, and with the recent high ankle sprain to the human wrecking ball that is Milan Lucic, they’re looking at another month without the powerful left wing. But what’s done is done, and after tonight’s victory, the Bruins have had only one loss in regulation over their last 13 for a 8-1-4 record that has seen them compete with some of the best teams in the league.

Tonight, the Bruins picked up right where they left off, storming out of the gate and playing aggressive hockey up and down the ice. The B’s got off shot after shot for the first few minutes of the game, but were unable to put anything on the scoreboard until a powerplay midway through the first.

A Zdeno Chara shot off the boards ended up in the hands of Savard, who wrapped around the net and sent a backhanded shot through Lightning goalie Mike Smith at 8:05. The goal was the 5^th on the year for Savard, as well as the 200^th of his career. Chara and Derek Morris were credited with assists.

Chara made his presence known again just a few minutes later, when another slapshot from the blue-line bounced off the goalie and into the hands of Patrice Bergeron, who tapped it in for his 8^th goal of the season at 14:03. Chara added another assist, his 15^th of the season, and Mark Recchi was credited with his 8^th. Oh, but the Bergeron line that has performed so magnificently this season was just getting into gear.

Evidently, Bergie and co. didn’t feel like letting Savard hog the spotlight tonight, taking complete control of the second period. Midway through the period, Sturm had a shot barely knocked down by Smith, with the puck dropping next to his right pad. A battle ensued, with Sturm crashing down on the crease and willing the puck past Smith for the goal, with a little help from Recchi. A few minutes later, Bergeron raced down the boards towards the Tampa Bay goal and fired an absolutely textbook pass to Sturm, who beat a defender to fire it in with a quick one-timer. Of course, the play developed thanks to a hard hit of the Lightning’s Andrej Meszaros by Recchi and subsequent recovery of the puck to give the B’s a three-on-one. The two goals gave Sturm 8 on the season (tying Bergeron for the team lead) and 21 career 2-goal games. Recchi and Bergie got assists on both, with Recchi grabbing his third on the night. Always the team player, Bergeron gave all the credit to Recchi for the play.

“That forecheck was unbelievable there. He was everywhere on this play. All I did is took the puck from went on a 2-on-1 but he made all the work and all the play to create that chance.”

It’s no secret that Bergeron has been performing at a high level all season, even carrying the team through the difficult injuries and tough road trips. But when the line as a whole performs the way it did tonight, the rest of the league will have a tough time stopping this team. Between hard hits, solid defense, great passing, and efficient shots, Bergeron’s line earned its paycheck tonight. After the game, Sturm commented on the importance of getting to know the style of play of his line-mates.

“I felt pretty comfortable, we got used to… even with [Recchi] and I’ve played with Bergie before so I think… like the 2 on 1 we had on my second goal. I know where he’s going and that makes a big difference.”

Also earning his paycheck was the impenetrable Tim Thomas, whose 39 saves on the night were a season high. Among those 39 stops were a series of acrobatic and athletic saves that rendered the Bolts attack ineffective. The one blemish on the night came at the start of the third period, when Jeff Halpern broke the shutout with a goal on a backhanded second effort after Thomas saved the initial shot. Thomas commented on the Bruins current hot streak after the game.

“We’ve started and stopped a whole bunch of times this year where it looked like we were gonna start going and then we fell back a little bit and this one, we’ve been able to put a sustained push lately and we wanna keep that going.”

I don’t mean to jinx it, but the good times may indeed keep coming for the Bruins in the immediate future as they play their next four games against fairly weak teams; next up on Friday at Montreal (12-13-2), then two at home against Toronto (7-12-7) and finally on the road against the NY Islanders (10-10-7). If things go according to plan, the B’s could continue their ride up the standings in the Eastern Conference. Let’s do this.

Lines:

Notes:

• In the third period, Vince Lecavalier tried to take a shot from the corner, but Zdeno Chara felt differently, smashing off the end of Lecavalier’s stick with his own. I suppose that’s one way to play defense.

• I like the nucleus that we have and when you come off a season like last year and the electricity in the city makes you wanna be a part of it and push for more, because it could be that much better.

• The battle for #1 Bruins goalie continues, after an impressive night full of acrobatic and athletic saves for Tim Thomas. Rask is 6-1-2 in his last 9 starts with a 1.72 GAA and a .940 Sv% in that span. Entering tonight’s game, Thomas was 2-0-3 w/ 1.90 GAA in his last 5 games played with 3 shutouts.

• Savard’s deal is worth $28 million over 7 years, for a $4.2 million cap hit. This is substantially less than Savard likely could have received had he tested the open market, but it does give the Bruins some breathing room to find a few other marquee free agents to keep him company during that time. After the game, Savard commented on some of the factors that influenced his decision. “I like the nucleus that we have and when you come off a season like last year and the electricity in the city makes you wanna be a part of it and push for more, because it could be that much better.”