Early penalty trouble killed the Bruins in Tuesday’s 6-2 loss to the Dallas Stars. On Thursday night, Boston flipped the script and rode a pair of early goals from its red-hot power play to a bounce-back 4-3 win over the Vegas Golden Knights.
Fresh off signing a two-year contract extension, Alex Steeves got to celebrate by taking a Tomas Hertl stick to the face that drew blood 9:01 into the first period. The Bruins wasted no time in making Vegas pay for the mistake.
Just 11 seconds into the power play, David Pastrnak set up Charlie McAvoy for a one-timer from the point that sailed through rush hour traffic right past Vegas goalie Akira Schmid.
Because it was a double minor, the Bruins still had two minutes of power-play time left. Once again, they wouldn’t need that much time. Thirty seconds after McAvoy’s goal, Elias Lindholm finished off a tic-tac-toe passing play, with Morgan Geekie finding a seam to Pastrnak, who then passed up a good look in order to set up Lindholm for a great one.
The Bruins’ power play is now 10-for-30 (33.3%) in 11 games since Dec. 31, third-best in the NHL during that time. It’s not a coincidence that the Bruins are 9-2-0 in those 11 games. On the season, Boston’s man advantage ranks fifth-best at 25.5%.
The first-period onslaught wasn’t over after the two power-play goals. Right after Lindholm’s goal, the Bruins’ fourth line hopped over the boards and turned in one of their many punishing offensive-zone shifts. Tanner Jeannot forced a Ben Hutton turnover with relentless pressure, and then Sean Kuraly got the puck back to Jeannot, who finished with a nice short-side finish over Schmid’s shoulder.
Three goals in 54 seconds. It was the Bruins’ fastest three goals since Dec. 20, 2001. And it was pretty much the end of Thursday’s game.
“Guys just showed up today and they wanted to prove everyone wrong, that that's not our game,” Bruins coach Marco Sturm said of the bounce-back effor. “We're better than that.”
The Bruins continued to choke the life out of Vegas in the second period, and extended their lead to 4-0 a little over seven minutes in, with Pastrnak finishing off a backhand feed from Nikita Zadorov after Zadorov had flicked Tomas Hertl off him like a mosquito. This was Pastrnak’s third game with three or more points in the last 11 games, with him totaling 22 points (6g, 16a) in that time.
The Golden Knights, to their credit, did not roll over in the third period. In fact, they scored two early goals to cut Boston’s lead to 4-2, and then another with 2:35 to go make it a one-goal game. But the Bruins managed to hang on, thanks in part to some big saves from Joonas Korpisalo and two big blocks by McAvoy on Jack Eichel. Korpisalo finished the night with 30 saves and his fourth straight win, and he now has a .948 save percentage over that stretch.
It wasn’t the prettiest third period for the Bruins, but ultimately they did enough to get a big bounce-back win over a very good Vegas team, one that had won seven of its last eight games coming in. Next up: a Saturday night showdown with the Montreal Canadiens, who embarrassed the Bruins, 6-2, the last time they came to town right before Christmas.