Danton Heinen celebrates one of his three goals during the Bruins’ 9-4 win over the Canadiens on Saturday in Boston. Michael Dwyer/Associated Press
Danton Heinen wasn’t sure he would even be playing in the NHL in the 2023-24 season. On Saturday night, he continued to make an impact for the Boston Bruins.
The forward potted his first career hat trick in the Bruins’ thrilling 9-4 win over the Montreal Canadiens at TD Garden. It was the second time in as many games a Boston player scored a hat trick – David Pastrnak did it in a 5-2 win against the Colorado Avalanche on Thursday.
For Heinen, who had been struggling to score lately, he was just happy to finally see the puck go in the net.
“I’m not gonna lie, it felt good,” Heinen told reporters. “Hasn’t been going in lately, so it feels good to see it go in and just contribute to get the two points.”
Heinen admitted he was “a little bit” surprised Coach Jim Montgomery sent him out on the power play so he could try to score the third goal. A nice set up by Morgan Geekie and Kevin Shattenkirk help seal the deal for Heinen.
The lack of scoring wasn’t due to effort. He had plenty of chances, but couldn’t find the back of the net. Montgomery sensed Heinen’s frustrations and talked to him about it – telling Heinen to continue getting to the front of the net.
“It’s amazing how everybody cares about everybody else,” Montgomery told reporters. “They continuously went down low to try to get it to Heinen. It was nice. I’m happy for him. I’m more happy with the way it developed and the way we continued to try to get him the hat trick.”
Heinen’s NHL future was up in the air going into this season. He didn’t receive any interest from teams after a lackluster 2022-23 season with the Pittsburgh Penguins. He latched on with the Bruins on a professional tryout contract but didn’t make the roster out of training camp. Despite not knowing if he had a future with the Bruins beyond a PTO, he hung around and continued to practice before eventually signing a one-year contract worth $775,000 eight games into the season.
Since then, he’s done everything right and was rewarded for it Saturday.
“(Saturday) was unbelievable,” Charlie Coyle told reporters. “Everyone’s so happy for him. And I think that says a lot when you see the reactions of your teammates with certain guys when they do well and have success and your teammates are pretty pumped about it. It says a lot about the person.
“We’re all so happy for him,” he added. “And enough can’t be said about how he’s come into this season, what he’s done, and just the team guy he’s been all the way through. He deserved tonight.”
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