BOSTON, MA – The Boston Bruins have been answering questions all week about a lack of scoring. Tonight they let their play answer those questions. Four goals from four different scorers paced the Bruins over the visiting New York Rangers 4-0. Jaroslav Halak stopped all 27 shots in earning his second shutout of the year.
David Pastrnak kicked off the goal-scoring festivities at 4:14 of the first. Pastrnak unloaded a bomb from the blue line that beat Rangers goalie Alexandar Georgiev top left corner for the 1-0 Bruins lead. Brad Marchand and Patrice Bergeron assisted on Pastrnak’s 12th goal of the year.
Forward Nick Ritchie was whistled for tripping at 17:07.
With the Rangers on the man advantage, the league’s best penalty-kill duo struck for the third time this season. Marchand dangled his way between Rangers defenders and deftly set up Bergeron in front of the Rangers net for the 2-0 lead just twenty-seven seconds into the kill. The goal was Bergeron’s second short-handed goal of the year and 19th of his career.
The Bruins continued their scoring ways in the second period. With Rangers Defenseman Libor Hajek in the penalty box for Holding, David Krejci notched his first goal of the season at 3:31 when he buried a Matt Grzelcyk past Georgiev to make it 3-0. With the secondary assist, Marchand picked up his third assist of the night on Krejci’s Power-Play Goal.
Jake DeBrusk followed suit by teeing off from the right face-off dot to chase Georgiev (10 saves) from the game. Krejci assisted on DeBrusk’s second of the year. DeBrusk looks to have gotten the message from his recent benching.
Keith Kinkaid came in on relief and stopped all 13 shots he faced in almost 35 minutes of action.
Despite two third-period power plays, the Rangers were unable to solve Halak.
“I liked what I saw tonight. I’m happy that he (DeBrusk) scored obviously,” said Bruins coach Bruce Cassidy when asked about DeBrusk’s play after the benching. “Him and Kretch (Krejci) both. They’ve been a little snake bit, so it should be good for their confidence. See if we can keep it rolling for Saturday and build off that.”
“Frustrated,” said Rangers head coach David Quinn when asked his post-game thoughts. “I thought we got off to a good start. I thought we were playing well. We had some chances early. We give up the goal, long shot, make it 1-0. I thought we were playing pretty well after that.”
“The short-handed goal was just a back-breaker in a lot of ways. You could kind of sense it,” added Quinn. “They got goals on their chances, and we didn’t.”
Boston (14-6-4) is currently in fourth place on 32 points, while the Rangers
(10-12-3) are in sixth place on 23 points. The two teams meet again on Saturday afternoon at TD Garden at 1 pm.
