Chris Kelly is not a player who often drops the gloves.

Heading into the 2014-15 season, Kelly had only exchanged punches with another combatant in five regular season bouts (via HockeyFights.com). Excluding the 2012-13 postseason, his last fight came during the 2011-12 campaign.

Thursday night against the red hot Chicago Blackhawks, Kelly ended his skid of three-plus seasons between fights.

Shortly after Torey Krug pulled the Bruins within a goal, Blackhawks forward Andrew Shaw delivered a late hit on Milan Lucic, who set up the second year defenseman for his fifth of the season at 12:17. As a donnybrook assembled in front of Blackhawks goalie and UMaine alumn Scott Darling, Kelly took exception to Shaw’s antics and the two exchanged blows. The TD Garden, which had been quiet for most of the night thanks in large part to their slow start, was roaring during that sequence.

Afterwards, Kelly’s teammates were appreciative of his leadership.

“It’s a reason why he’s got an ‘A’ on his jersey,” Lucic said about Kelly. “He’s gonna step up for his teammates when the time is right. You’ve seen him do it in the past, and you saw it tonight. He’s the type of guy you want on your team that you know has always got your back. Just evidence of the type of team guy that he is, and stepping up for himself and his teammates.”

The Bruins had their captain, Zdeno Chara, return to the lineup after a lengthy absence. Patrice Bergeron, who will likely don the ‘C’ when the 6-foot-9 defenseman retires, is one of Kelly’s assistant captains.

Both Chara and Bergeron saw Kelly leading by example during his fight with Shaw.

“It shows that he definitely cares,” Bergeron said about the veteran forward. “You know, he didn’t like the way that Looch got hit. It was a little late, and he didn’t like that, and not just him, but a few guys came in pretty quick, and when you care like that, it shows that you definitely send the message to all the guys.”

“I think it really woke [the crowd] up,” Chara said of the sequence featuring Krug’s goal and Kelly’s fight with Shaw. “That gave us a chance to fight for that last minute goal.”

They didn’t get the last minute goal. But the 17,565 at TD Garden got to see a rare Chris Kelly fight.

Even if Kelly isn’t the highest profile player, moments like Thursday’s show how important he is to the other 19 guys in the Bruins’ locker room.