It was Tomas Plekanec night at the TD Garden in Boston on Thursday night. The Montreal Canadiens centreman scored on both Carey Price and Tim Thomas in the Habs 2-1 win over the Boston Bruins. It was the first game that Max Pacioretty had to face Zdeno Chara since that incident in March.

PHOTO CREDIT - NHL.com

Whitby - October 28, 2011 - It was Tomas Plekanec night at the TD Garden in Boston on Thursday night. The Montreal Canadiens centreman scored the game’s first goal at 14:05 of the first period when he won a draw in the Canadiens’ defensive zone against a falling Patrice Bergeron and backhanded the puck past a surprised Carey Price.

Plekanec later broke a one-all tie with the game winner for Montreal at 10:46 of the third period when he wristed a shot under Tim Thomas’ stick from the right faceoff dot in the Bruins’ end of the rink.

Erik Cole scored the Canadiens’ other goal in the contest. He had a very strong game and is currently riding a three-game point streak.

Except for his blunder in the opening frame, Habs’ netminder Carey Price was the big difference in the game. He made some huge saves and challenged the Bruins’ shooters. Price’s biggest and most important save was the breakaway attempt he turned away on Rich Peverley with 5:37 left in the second frame. Thursday’s contest was the first meeting between both clubs since their seven-game series last season in the first round of the 2010-11 NHL playoffs. The old animosity was still there between Boston and Montreal as the Bruins came out hitting hard. Many Canadiens will be battered and bruised on Friday morning, with Brian Gionta, Lars Eller and P.K. Subban most likely being the worse for wear.

Speaking of P.K. Subban, he got into a laughable main event with diminutive pesky forward, Brad Marchand. After Thursday night’s performance (or non-performance) displayed by Subban, he should stick to the sport he knows bestâ€"and it isn’t boxing.

Never have I seen a NHL fight whereby one of the main combattants throw so many errant haymakers. Let us call this one a draw. Subban is more valuable to the Canadiens on the ice and not in the sin-bin.

Thomas played a strong game for Boston, but took the loss (stopped 33-of-35 shots, .943 save percentage). He made a beautiful stop on a Michael Cammalleri breakaway attempt in the second period. As for the rest of Thomas’ teammates, they failed to execute a complete game plan for 60 straight minutes.

The announced three stars of the game were Boston’s Rich Peverley (3rd star, had four shots on goal), Montreal’s Price (2nd star, 29-of-30 shots stopped, .967 save percentage) and Tomas Plekanec (1st star, one goal for Boston, one goal for Montreal).

With the win, Montreal (3-5-2) has now won two straight games after a six game winless streak. With the loss, Boston (3-6-0) now falls to last place in the NorthEast Division. It will be a big night at the Bell Centre on Saturday night for the second half of this home-and-home series.

For the complete boxscore and individual game stats review, please refer to the NHL.com link below.

STATS & PHOTO CREDIT - NHL.com