If you can forgive Chris Bourque for not skipping Saturday’s game against the Maple Leafs to fly to Montreal and beat up John Scott during the Sabres-Canadiens matinee (sorry, been listening to a lot of talk radio callers this weekend), it should be easy to feel happy for him. 

Bruins fans were delighted to see Bourque celebrate his first-period goal in Bourque fashion by dropping to a knee and executing an energized fist-pump, a la his father, Ray. As happy as the celebration likely made B’s fans, Chris was probably more delighted to score. After all, his last NHL goal (and only other NHL goal through 39 career games) came over four years ago. 

After going without a point early on in the season and going 0-for-2 in shootout opportunities, the pressure (fairly or unfairly) had been on Bourque to prove his worth in the Bruins’ lineup. Obviously and especially on the Bruins, one can prove his worth without scoring goals, but considering he was the new guy (and the son of a Boston legend), there would be no better way for Bourque to win over the fans than by lighting the lamp. 

Bourque finally did that in the first period when he finished off a net-drive clinic put on by Chris Kelly’s line. Coming through the neutral zone, Kelly sent the puck ahead to Rich Peverley at the blue line, with Kelly continuing down low, where he sped past a Toronto defender and took a pass from Peverley at the goal line and backhanded it to the front of the net, where Bourque came flying in to send the puck into the net for the game's only goal in a 1-0 Bruins win. Bourque’s momentum sent him crashing into the post, but it wasn’t enough to put a damper on what must have been a pretty big relief.

The goal wasn’t just big for Bourque. Through the first six games of the season (the trio didn’t play together in the seventh game due to Bourque’s status as a healthy scratch), the line of Kelly between Peverley and Bourque failed to score a single goal, and Bourque and Peverley had minus-4 ratings. Considering that Kelly and Peverley had played together and clicked for the vast majority of their first season and a half in Boston, Bourque became an easy scapegoat for the line’s offensive struggles. 

Now, the line has scored goals in consecutive games. Peverley picked up a goal in the second period against the Sabres on Thursday, when Daniel Paille skated on the Kelly line in Bourque’s place. With Paille out of the lineup due to an upper-body injury, Bourque saw his return to the lineup Saturday and made the most of it. When the Bruins found themselves without Brad Marchand for the second half of the game, Bourque saw some third-period shifts on the second line with Patrice Bergeron and Tyler Seguin (Gregory Campbell also picked up some of Marchand’s shifts). All in all, it was a nice return to the lineup for Bourque, who picked up his first positive rating of the season after posting minus-1 ratings in four of the season’s first six games. 

Paille’s situation is currently unknown after he didn’t travel with the B’s for Saturday’s game after getting hurt Thursday against the Sabres, but one would figure that Bourque’s night on Saturday earned him a longer look in his current role. 

Kelly said earlier in the week that he remembers being the new guy in Boston and wanting to score a goal just for the sake of winning the fans over. Given that, he could identify with Bourque’s situation. 

“I’ve been in his shoes before, where you want to come in, you want to play the perfect game defensively, yet you’ve got to add some offense to kind of get noticed,” Kelly said Thursday. “I think Chris has done a great job and helped our line. He’s just a little unlucky here or there, but those bounces will eventually go in.”

Kelly went the first 20 games of his Boston career without a goal (he had only two assists) but eventually made his importance to the team clear with his strong two-way play and leadership qualities. 

Bourque isn’t expected to contribute like Kelly, who had 20 goals a season ago for the B’s, but his coach and teammates believe he can make an impact at the NHL level after spending all but one game over the last three years in the AHL, Swiss League or KHL. Now that he’s gotten on the score sheet, perhaps Bourque can breathe a sigh of relief and find enough offensive consistency to prove the Bruins right.