Bruins score early and often in 6-3 win over Wild
The B’s continued their strong push for a playoff spot behind two goals from Pavel Zacha and 32 saves from Jeremy Swayman.
The Boston Bruins continue to make a strong push toward securing a playoff spot.
The Bruins gained early control of Saturday's game against the Minnesota Wild at TD Garden, scoring just 61 seconds into regulation and holding off a late rally to earn a 6-3 win. The Bruins' forward line of Casey Mittelstadt, Pavel Zacha, and Viktor Arvidsson accounted for three of the Bruins' five goals, including two for Zacha. Goaltender Jeremy Swayman stopped 32 of 35 Wild shots (.914) to notch his 29th win of the season.
The Bruins got off to about as good a start as an NHL team can hope, scoring the game's first goal on their first shift. And it came from an unlikely source, as defenseman Andrew Peeke whipped it past Wild goaltender Filip Gustavsson for just his fifth goal of the season and his first since Dec. 29 against the Calgary Flames. Peeke took advantage of the Bruins' active forecheck and gathered the loose puck down the half wall before firing the shot for the score.
The B's killed off a Tanner Jeannot penalty to keep themselves ahead. In another first-period highlight, Mark Kastelic dropped the gloves and had a spirited throwdown with Minnesota's Michael McCarron.
The Bruins followed up that scrap with their second goal of the game just 10 seconds later to take a 2-0 lead--by who else but their second line. Defenseman Jonathan Aspirot sparked the B's with a blocked shot, which allowed Mittelstadt to whack the breakout pass up to Arvidsson, who fed a trailing Zacha down the right side. Zacha ripped it by Gustavsson to put the Bruins up two.
Zacha extended his new career-high single-season goal total to 25 in the game. The Bruins nearly scored again in the closing seconds of the first, but Gustavsson extinguished that chance, so they took a 2-0 lead into first intermission.
Swayman made multiple sensational saves to bail the Bruins defense out of a messy situation in front of him early in the second period, keeping it a two-goal game.
Midway through the second, the Zacha line struck again. They put another strong shift together to pin the Wild in their own zone, then made them pay just as David Pastrnak came on for a line change. Pastrnak made a slick cross-ice pass to Arvidsson, who didn't quite get all of it but caught Gustavsson with a changeup to make it 3-0 Bruins.
The Wild finally got on the board with 5:14 left in second, as defenseman Brock Faber landed a stretch pass to center Ryan Hartman behind the defense, then Hartman fed it cross-ice to a streaking Kirill Kaprizov, who finished for his 39th goal of the season. The score broke a five-game drought for Minnesota's star winger.
Fraser Minten went to the box for a hooking penalty shortly after the Kaprizov goal, but the Bruins killed it off and went to the second intermission up 3-1.
Early in the third period, Bruins forward Elias Lindholm continued his encouraging recent streak of production. Lindholm found great ice behind Gustavsson, who had to focus on the initial shot from Charlie McAvoy, and newcomer Lucas Reichel slipped it to a wide-open Lindholm, who tucked it in to make it a 4-1 game.
Later in the third, the Wild threatened after Nikita Zadorov and Marat Khusnutdinov got whistled on the same shift to give them a 5-on-3 power play. Veteran Mats Zuccarello gave his team a much-needed spark on a power play by walking the puck down and picking the top corner far-side to cut the deficit to 4-2.
With 6:16 left in the game, Hartman buried a rebound after Swayman made the initial stop to make it a one-goal game for the first time since midway through the first period.
But suddenly, with 3:10 left in regulation, the Zacha line put an exclamation point on their day. Mittelstadt spun around and fired the puck toward the Minnesota net, and Zacha gained enough inside position to tip it home and make it 5-3.
