Bruins tie NHL record with dominant win over Blackhawks

The Bruins woke up on Saturday and decided that they not only wanted to tie an NHL record for most consecutive home wins to begin a season, but that they wanted to tie that record in downright dominant fashion, as the Bruins beat the Blackhawks up and down the ice for a 6-1 final at TD Garden.

With the win, the Bruins officially tied that aforementioned league record, joining the 2021-22 Panthers and 1963-64 Blackhawks as the only other teams in league history to open a season with an 11-game home win streak.

And this one wasn’t even close.

On the board with 15 first-period shots (compared to just three at Jeremy Swayman at the other end), the Bruins opened the scoring in this contest up on a power-play sequence that featured more than a couple all-world chances before David Pastrnak received a sweet feed from Brad Marchand and potted it through Petr Mrazek.

It was an absolute blitz of a first period that without a doubt should have come with more than just one goal from the Bruins. It quite literally felt as if the Bruins were on the power play every single time they crossed over the Chicago blue line and towards Mrazek. To only get one goal for those efforts is always a dangerous proposition, and more often not tends to swing back the other way and haunt you in some fashion.

But the Bruins made sure that wasn’t even a slight worry, as they hammered Mrazek for another three tallies in the middle frame, including two in a 1:08 stretch from Jake DeBrusk and David Krejci.

Up by a 4-1 score through 40 minutes — and outshooting the Blackhawks by a 30-8 mark — this game was absolutely over after just two periods.

That became unofficially official when the Blackhawks failed to muster anything on an early power-play opportunity in the third frame, and was given its final sign off when Nick Foligno fed Pastrnak on a two-on-one chance for Pastrnak’s second of the evening.

That strike made it a four-goal edge, which was already more than enough.

And in the event that it wasn’t, the Bruins added a sixth goal on for good measured, scored off a Taylor Hall shot and with some net-front battling in front of Mrazek, with just 2:03 remaining in the game.

The record-tying win was like how many of these victories have gone for the Bruins in the sense that it was yet another team-wide effort for the Black and Gold.

While Charlie McAvoy (four assists) and Brad Marchand (three assists) led the way with three-point evenings, it was a contest that saw 11 different Boston skaters finish with at least one point.

In net, Swayman made his first start since Oct. 27 (and his first appearance since suffering a lower-body injury in a Nov. 1 outing against the Penguins), and finished with 17 saves for his third win of the season.

Up next, the Bruins will head down to Florida for a quick two-game road trip with games against the Lightning and Panthers beginning Monday night in Tampa.