With the playoffs sitting just over a month away, the Boston Bruins have won eight straight games and are heating up at the right time. The Bruins defeated the Carolina Hurricanes 5-1 on Saturday afternoon and the Phoenix Coyotes 2-1 on Thursday night.

The Bruins struck first against Carolina midway through the first period. Right wing Milan Lucic scored at the 15 minute, 28 second mark to give the team a 1-0 lead.

With five minutes, 53 seconds left in the second period, Bruins right wing Jarome Iginla scored the Bruins' second goal of the game. With only 34.5 seconds left in the second period, a penalty was called against the Bruins, leaving the team shorthanded going into the third period.

Although the Bruins did not allow a power-play goal, the Hurricanes scored just seconds after the penalty expired, cutting the lead to 3-1.

At 8:23 into the third period, Bruins right wing Reilly Smith received the team's final penalty of the night, a two-minute minor for tripping.

The remainder of the third period resulted in several hits both for and against the Bruins. Defenseman Dougie Hamilton showed his dominance, knocking an unsuspecting Hurricanes right wing Jeff Skinner to the ice.

"I think I'm working on my game and trying to be physical and stuff, but I'm not sure there's many big, nice hits anymore and those are pretty rare," said Hamilton of his hit. "I think we can be pretty intimidating when all four lines are rolling, if we're trying hard, and hitting I think puts the other team on their heels, and ... our team's pretty good at that."

The Bruins added third-period goals from center Chris Kelly, Iginla and defenseman Torey Krug to seal Boston's 5-1 victory.

The Bruins edged the Coyotes on Thursday night with a final score of 2-1 due in large part to a strong performance by goaltender Tuukka Rask and active offensive involvement from their defensemen.

Rask's workload was not particularly heavy, confronting just 23 shots, but the shots that he did face were often very difficult to fend off. The Coyotes hit the post a few times during the home stretch of the game, just missing out on a few goals.

Defensemen Zdeno Chara opened the scoring first at the 14:06 mark in the first period following a mistake from a Coyotes defensemen.

After intercepting a clearing attempt, Chara floated the puck over Phoenix goaltender Mike Smith's blocker for his 16th goal of the season. The scoring continued for Boston toward the end of the period. Iginla redirected a point shot from defenseman Johnny Boychuk with just 2:29 left in the first for his 21st goal of the season.

"Yeah, I think we're playing well," Iginla said. "I think there have been different types of games. I think a big part is, you know, we've had great goaltending all year and we had that in this [game]."

The closest Phoenix came was a single goal from left wing Lauri Korpikoski. He tipped in a shot at 8:14 into the third period. While the second period was tightly contested, it yielded just five shots total between the two teams.

The victory was coach Claude Julien's 300th win as the head coach of the Bruins.

Julien stated that it did not matter in particular, but nonetheless, he enjoyed the win.

"It's great. Don't get me wrong, it's great," he said. "I'm happy it's happened here and I'm happy to have that, but at the same time ... I'd rather look forward to hopefully a lot more than just that."

The Bruins travel to Newark for a road game against the New Jersey Devils tonight before a weekend swing through the West Coast.


-Marissa Ditkowsky and Dan Rozel