Final Score: Boston Bruins 4, Florida Panthers 1

For the Bruins, their two-game Florida swing couldn’t help but feel like a vacation.

On Sunday, the Bruins submitted enough hard-hat grinding to term it a working vacation. The team scored a 4-1 win over the Panthers to complete a sweep of the Florida clubs. On Thursday, the Bruins beat the Lightning, 4-2.

Milan Lucic, Zdeno Chara, Chris Kelly and Daniel Paille scored and Tuukka Rask stopped 34 shots for the Bruins, who improved to 3-1-0 on the team’s five-game road trip. Boston is now 7-1-1 on the road this season.

 Highlights:

– The Bruins are off to their finest start in 36 years (11-2-2) and won their third straight game.

– The Boston penalty-kill unit played a pivotal role, killing four minutes in penalties called on Lucic late in the second period. The B’s have killed 21 straight penalties.

– The B’s found success on the power-play. Chris Kelly’s power-play goal gave the Bruins’ a 3-1 lead. Boston now has a power-play percentage of 14.9 and is no longer last place in the league.

Players of the Game:

– David Krejci set up Lucic for the Bruins’ first goal of the game. Krejci beat Marcel Goc and then passed the puck back to Lucic. Before Jacob Markstrom could set himself, Lucic snapped the puck past the goalie at 7:57.

– Zdeno Chara caught a pass from Brad Marchand and then pulled off a spin-o-rama to twirl around Jonathan Huberdeau, ending up near the right circle. Chara then pulled the puck to his backhand and snapped a shot over Markstrom’s glove at 13:52 of the first for a 2-0 lead. Chara is known for his defensive-zone domination, but he definitely proved he can dangle too.

– Chris Kelly’s power-play goal at 2:30 of the second stretched the Bruins’ lead to 3-1. A loose puck drifted toward the net after a fanned shot by Paille went between the skates of a defenseman and landed on Kelly’s stick. He poked it in for his first of the season.

Quote of the Game:

“We’ve had our fair share of tough times here in Florida, always unable to sweep here on a lot of occasions,” said B’s coach Claude Julien, whose team also won in Tampa Thursday. “It was tough two games for us, but it’s nice to come out on the winning side.”

Looking Ahead:

The Bruins will conclude their five-game road trip and travel to New York on Tuesday to play the New York Islanders (7-6-1). The puck will drop at 7:30 p.m. at the Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum.  This is the second time the two teams will meet as the Bruins defeated the Islanders 4-2 on Jan. 25.