BOSTON -- With all eyes on three freshly stitched Penguins jerseys, it was the Bruins status quo stealing the show at the TD Banknorth Garden. Two first period goals courtesy of Marco Sturm set the pace in Boston's season-best fifth straight win, 5-1.

Adding injury to insult, Marian Hossa's first game in Pittsburgh garb was cut short after leaving the game in the middle of the second period with a right knee injury. He did not return to action and will be reevaluated tomorrow.

"I had that funny feeling and I just kind of knew, but hopefully it's nothing serious," Hossa said.

Hossa skated with Ryan Malone and Evgeni Malkin and saw time on Pittsburgh's first power play, logging just eight minutes and 46 seconds of ice time. Marco Sturm opened up the Boston scoring, deflecting a Chuck Kobasew wrist shot past Ty Conklin for the game's first goal and beating him again two minutes later with a stick-side slap shot. "I think [Conklin] had a rough day, so [we're] glad we buried our chances tonight," Sturm said.

Pittsburgh's struggles continued in net, getting beat by a Zdeno Chara blast from the point to put the Bruins up 3-0. The goal marked Chara's fifth scored during the streak. His 15 goals place him second in scoring amongst defensemen, trailing only Washington's Mike Green, with eight of those goals coming the Bruins' last ten games.

Chara's tally chased Conklin from the game, leaving Marc-Andre Fleury to man the fort in his first game in net since December 6th in Calgary. Conklin allowed three goals on 13 shots in his fifth loss of the season. Fleury performed admirably, stopping 16 shots, but noted that the game always looks a little faster when you hit the ice. "It was fast, the game, and I needed to catch up a bit, but it felt good to be back in net," he said.

Boston's only blemish came in garbage time as the newly-acquired, and largely forgotten piece of the Hossa deal, Pascal Dupuis, netted his 11th goal of the season in the fourth. P.J. Axelsson and David Krejci tallied goals down the stretch for the Bruins to complete the rout. The Bruins have defied all conventional wisdom over the winning streak by scoring 18 goals in five games, unusually offensive output for a Claude Julien club.

Former Bruin Hal Gill, who was a -2 in his Penguins debut, hardly recognizes the team he played against with Toronto calling the Bruins "a whole different team" and crediting the management, coaching staff, and players for their adjustments.

"This is a good team," Penguins' coach Michel Therrien said. "They capitalized on their chances and they worked for their breaks."

Pittsburgh had a chance to claim first place in the Eastern Conference with a victory, but instead find themselves as losers of three of their last four games and stuck in fourth place with 79 points. "It's getting to the point where it's tiring, playing with half of the lineup all the time," Therrien said. "Every time you see the light at the end of the tunnel, it's bang!"

While the flashiest of deadline moves paid no dividends tonight, outside of Dupuis' meaningless third period score, the Bruins couldn't be happier to not have to welcome a new face in the locker room. "The boys are all playing together right now," Marc Savard said. "It's an amazing feeling when the ball gets rolling.

"It is fun going to the rink every day when it is like this. Hopefully, we just keep rolling. Getting into the playoffs was our goal and now it seems we are pushing up, looking ahead of us."

Game Notes

Hossa indicated he thought he suffered a grade one knee injury, which can take up to a week and a half to heal. The Penguins will be crossing their fingers it's that minor when he gets reevaluated tomorrow. Few of the Bruins players saw the play where Hossa got hurt. Glen Murray had a front row seat, when he and Hossa collided hips in the second period. Who'd have thought that Murray, who missed time this season with a hip flexor, would come out the victor?

Deuces wild for Chuck Kobasew, who registered two assists, two points, two shots on net, and a +2 after missing two games with a groin injury.

Marco Sturm notched his 200th goal of his career and Marc Savard recorded his 400th assist of his career at the expense of the penguins.

The loudest applause of the night came after Milan Lucic and Jarkko Ruutu's marathon tussle in the third period. The fight began at the left end of the Bruins bench, proceeded diagonally towards the penalty box across center ice, and concluded past the blue line near the Penguins bench. Lucic, who Ruutu goaded into the fight, saluted the crowd afterwards with a two arm fist pump. In all, the bout lasted about two minutes. Oh yeah, he was also fighting with a broken nose, business as usual on the job according to Shawn Thornton. "Over his next 15-20 year career, he's going to have to fight with a broken nose. We've all had to do it, so it's good that he got it out of the way early," he said. For those keeping score at home, that was twice that Lucic has broken his nose this season.

Two of the Penguins three deadline acquisitions were on the ice for their only goal. Pascal Dupuis scored the goals and Hal Gill oversaw the activities from the blue line.

So much for the best power play in the league. By failing to score on the power play against the Bruins, Pittsburgh broke up a streak of 13 straight games with a power play goal.