WILMINGTON, Mass. — With only five NHL fighting majors on his resume before he dropped the gloves with Boston Bruins forward and noted pugilist Milan Lucic last night at TD Banknorth Garden, Tampa Bay defenseman Josef Melichar might be forgiven for not having the fight scouting report fresh in his mind when threw an elbow at the Boston winger.

That might be why Melichar was completely unprepared for Lucic’s left hook and how much it would hurt. Here’s a look at the abridged fight.

Luckily for Melichar (whose career fight card, according to hockeyfights.com, includes an ’01 bout with Zdeno Chara), Lucic knows and adheres to “The Code.” So when Melichar put his head down, it was fight over. (more…)

WILMINGTON, Mass. — The Boston Bruins have now won four in a row and every night they look more and more like the Stanley Cup contender they resembled back in the middle part of the season.

Today they did not rest on their laurels after their 3-1 win over Tampa Bay, as they practiced at Ristuccia Arena. Everyone was on the ice except for injured wingers Shawn Thornton and Phil Kessel. Head coach Claude Julien said it’s status quo with both guys, as Thornton is day to day and Kessel out until early next week.

The line combinations were the same from the victory over the Lightning.

WILMINGTON, Mass. — Not only am I at Boston Bruins practice at Ristuccia Arena right now, I am also on Twitter.com.

You can follow my tweets starting right now. My screen name is TheBruinsBlog. Just one more thing for me to update, but if it keeps you all more informed, all the better. And if this doesn’t help, I’ll retired to join the singing parrots at the Enchanted Tiki Room.

Kovalev

If you’re among those dreaming of another Boston-Montreal first-round playoff series, last night was an enjoyable one for you. While the Bruins were disposing of Tampa Bay, the Canadiens were downing Chicago after Alex Kovalev needed just 25 seconds to get the Habs on the board first.

As Pat Hickey of The Gazette reports, the win was also a triumph for Habs goaltender Carey Price over his former mentor Cristobal Huet.

MK: It’s a delicate balance right now if you want the Boston-Montreal series to come to fruition. With the Bruins pretty much a lock now to finish No. 1, you need the Habs to win enough to get in the playoffs, but not too much to move up. And with the New York Rangers playing a tough schedule, it might be difficult to keep the Habs in eighth even if they just win a couple more times.

Elsewhere in the division:

•Start filming that “Slap Shot” remake in Toronto. The Maple Leafs have signed Christian Hanson.

•Leafs forward Mikhail Grabovski is now the leading rookie scorer in the league.

•Buffalo winger Patrick Kaleta says he’s ready to return from his head injury.

Phillips

With their loss to the Florida Panthers last night, the Ottawa Senators were officially mathematically eliminated from playoff contention. That makes them a dangerous, nothing-to-lose opponent for the Boston Bruins Thursday, but also means they’re a little discouraged.

“It’s reality and it’s not easy. It’s very disappointing. Obviously, we knew our chances were pretty slim. We pretty well had to win out with quite a few games left,” defenseman Chris Phillips said in Bruce Garrioch’s story in the Ottawa Sun. “Once it’s reality it hits home a little harder. For myself, this is my first time going through this, it’s tough. It’s frustrating to see how good our team can be when we play well.”

For the second time in three games, the Senators had to pull goaltender Brian Elliott, as Allen Panzeri repors in the Ottawa Citizen.

MK: Give the Sens credit for hanging in as long as they did, but if management really thinks that team was good enough to compete for and in the playoffs, then its delusional. Starting with the shaky goaltending and looking at the lack of depth on the back end, the Sens need a major overhaul. This will be their first playoff-less spring since 1996.

Here’s one I’ve heard a million times:

Bruins goaltender Manny Fernandez and actor Clive Owen:

Fernandez

BOSTON — I hereby declare that for as long as they are together as a power-play unit, the quintet of Zdeno Chara, Andrew Ference, Chuck Kobasew, Patrice Bergeron and David Krejci (plus Phil Kessel if/when he rejoins the fray) will be from here on known as the “blue-collar” power play.

And that, of course, makes the group of Dennis Wideman, Matt Hunwick,  Marc Savard, Michael Ryder and Mark Recchi the “white-collar” unit.

No offense to the hard-working efforts of that group centered around the fancy passing of Savard, but you won’t see that Chara posse doing anything but grind and battle and give blood until it cashes in on a man-advantage.

“We’re trying to keep it simple — get the puck back to Z and Andy and just go to the net and let those guys shoot it. And try to create some traffic and try to get those rebounds,” said Kobasew, who scored one of his group’s two power-play goals (Chara scored the other) in a 3-1 win over Tampa Bay tonight at TD Banknorth Garden. (more…)