Like any truly elite captain would, Bruins captain Patrice Bergeron made sure that the second leg of a travel-heavy back-to-back did not require overtime for the Black and Gold on Wednesday night in New Jersey.

Deadlocked at 1-1 late in the third period of their second showdown on Prudential Center ice in less than a week, Bergeron found just enough of a Hampus Lindholm shot from the left wall to deflect it down and through the Devils’ Vitek Vanecek in what held as the game-winning goal in a 3-1 final.

And though the Bruins got the game-winning goal late in the third period of play, the story of this one came at the other end, as Linus Ullmark once again thrived in Boston’s crease.

Peppered with 31 shots, Ullmark surrendered just one goal, and was forced to stand on his head early with 16 first-period shots thrown on goal by a fast-and-furious New Jersey offense. And even when the Devils’ Nico Hischier put Jersey on the board in the third period, it took pretty brutal-looking breakdowns from Charlie McAvoy and Hampus Lindholm to put ’em in position to strike on the 6-foot-5 Ullmark.

Ullmark was also credited with saves on 11 of 12 high-danger shots faced, according to Natural Stat Trick. The analytics-based website also had Ullmark with an expected goals against average north of 4.00.

At the other end of the rink, Trent Frederic opened up the scoring for the Bruins with a second-period strike that beat Vanecek for the St. Louis native’s seventh goal of the season.

Sparked by a sweet no-look feed from Lindholm, Frederic ripped through the shot through Vanecek from just above the sweet spot between the circles, and is now just one tally away from matching his single-season high in goals (eight, which came last season).

The goal was good for Frederic’s first lamplighter since Dec. 7.

It was quite the busy night for Frederic, all things considered, as he manned the middle of Boston’s fourth line, and also dropped the gloves with the Devils’ Kevin Bahl in this contest.

In addition to goals from Bergeron and Frederic, Pavel Zacha iced this game with an empty-net goal against his former club. The goal brought Zacha up to five goals and 22 points on the year, and the Czech forward is currently paced for what would be a 12-goal and 52-point campaign. His previous career-high is 36 points.

The Bruins played this game without fourth-line center Tomas Nosek in action. The team downplayed Nosek’s absence, but it’s worth mentioning that Nosek entered Wednesday as one of nine Boston skaters to appear in every game this season. The Bruins had just one player (Charlie Coyle) appear in all 82 games last season.

Jim Montgomery’s squad will return to Boston and get back in action Saturday afternoon against the Sabres.