The season is young, but it’s safe to say the Bruins needed what they got Thursday night. What they got was a convincing win to follow a truly ugly loss Tuesday, and a win that saw their two underperforming power forwards get back on track. 

Andrew Ference, Zdeno Chara, Tyler Seguin and Milan Lucic had three-point nights, while Patrice Bergeron, in addition to scoring, had a career-high nine shots on goal as the Bruins handed the Maple Leafs their first regulation loss, 6-2. It was a night in which statistical achievements were aplenty, and Milan Lucic and Nathan Horton needed them badly.  

Horton was the goat of Tuesday night’s game due to an ill-advised roughing double-minor that left the B’s shorthanded amidst a third-period comeback bid, and both he and Lucic were struggling to produce. Lucic led the B’s with 30 goals last season, but had not scored yet in the 2011-12 campaign. 

Both Lucic and Horton, who were separated with Claude Julien’s new lines, got back to producing Thursday. Horton got the Bruins on the board in the first period and added an assist, while Lucic scored his first goal of the season, had a pair of helpers and proved Julien right for keeping him with Seguin. 

“With the start we had it hasn’t been great,” Horton said of the offense’s lack of production. “It’s definitely nice but we need to obviously build on it. It was only one game, and hopefully if we keep working hard things are going to keep coming our way.”

Horton now has two goals and two assists while Lucic has a goal and three assists. The two obviously liked their playing with one another last season and early on this season, but Julien's plan to put Horton with Bergeron and Brad Marchand worked, while Lucic found success with Seguin and Chris Kelly. It will be interesting to see whether the two remain on their current lines for a prolonged period, as David Krejci, who returned Thursday from a core injury, should eventually center the two again at some point. 

SEGUIN CRUSHES LEAFS AGAIN

Maybe these Toronto games bring the best out of him because he’s from the area. Maybe it’s because the Leafs were the team that were supposed to draft him. For whatever reason, Tyler Seguin had another strong October performance against Toronto that showed plenty of promise for the season.

Last year, it was Oct. 28. Seguin scored the second Bruins’ goal in a 2-0 shutout victory against the Maple Leafs. Following his goal came the very first “Thank You Kessel” chant, which was heard once again Thursday. Yet on that day, the chant wasn’t the best thing Seguin heard: that distinction went to the Bruins telling the then-18-year-old that he would be staying in the NHL rather than being returned to juniors. 

Almost one year later, a one-goal performance isn’t head-turning stuff from Seguin. Instead, the second-year player had a three-point night with a goal and two assists. On one assist, he was still able to blow by a defenseman with Milan Lucic while being hooked by Dion Phaneuf. The two completed the rush when Seguin dished the puck to Lucic, who beat Jonas Gustavsson to make it 4-1.

“Obviously you’ve got to fight through things like that,” Seguin said of Phaneuf’s attempted hook. “Luckily, he didn’t pull me down.”

Seguin’s career-high three points added to his already team-leading total, and his eight points through seven games are more than a third of his entire regular-season production (11 goals, 11 assists) from last season. 

The second overall pick in 2010 by the Bruins thanks to the Phil Kessel trade, Seguin has been considered a superstar in the making since the day B’s drafted. These days, it seems Seguin is clearly making himself into a superstar. He still gets timid at points in areas where he may face contact, but he’s been infinitely better in that part of the game than he was last season. [Plus, the Bruins don’t need him to be the most aggressive player in the world. Look at the other team Thursday. Kessel avoids the dirty areas at all costs and he leads the NHL in points].

Last year, Seguin was trying to prove he belonged in the NHL, and he did that at points. This year, he might be their best player under 6-foot-9 so far. It took a year for him to get his feet wet, but now Seguin is splashing around the NHL and leaving the score sheet soaked. 

“His shot, he has a great shot,” Lucic said of watching his linemate become a legitimate NHL player. “The quickness, he’s got great hands, he’s got that scoring touch and that’s why he was picked so high in the draft. It’s great to see him play with more confidence and get more comfortable as he grows and matures.”

BACK TO FIGHTING AND WINNING

Shawn Thornton got in his first fight of the season Thursday. Was he thankful somebody was finally willing to engage him?

“You’re under the assumption that I love getting punched in the face,” No. 22 said with a smirk when asked Thursday night. 

Julien said after the victory that the Bruins looked more like the Bruins than they’d been seeing in previous games. Perhaps that’s because Thornton was able to provide the bruising ingredient he provides so well.

Countless times last season, Thornton would get in a fight (OK, not countless – he got in 14 fights) and it would put the Bruins in attack mode. Though the Maple Leafs actually scored the first goal of the game following Thornton’s bout with Colton Orr, a connection can certainly be made between Thornton dropping the gloves and the B’s putting the pedal to the metal. 

“He picked us up a lot,” Horton said of Thornton. “He’s got a tough job, but he definitely picked us up. We pretty much played a complete game.”

Thornton’s fight-less streak was not for lack of trying. In at least half of the Bruins’ first six games, he tried getting opposing players to drop the gloves without one accepting. Though the unwillingness of those who challenged left him without a fight for the first six games of the season, Thornton said the wait never got to him.

“There were a few times in the first six games where I guess I couldn’t find somebody but that happens over the course of a season," he said. "I wasn’t hitting the panic button... I was pretty sure I wasn’t going to go all 82 without one.”