Boston Bruins

Boston Bruins

Boston Bruins

  • When you’re on a 19-game point streak on home ice, things have a way of bouncing your way.

    I mean, the fact that you’ve accumulated points in every game on home ice alone confirms the fact that the bounces have more often than not gone your way. And in pursuit of extending that stretch to 20 Thursday night at TD Garden, the Bruins got that bounce when a puck took a pinball bounce off the TD Garden boards in the second period and left Winnipeg netminder Connor Hellebuyck in no man’s land, and with the puck on David Pastrnak’s stick.

    It proved to be the exact jumpstart that the Bruins needed, too, as the Pastrnak gimme was the start of a three-goal run that pushed the Bruins to a 3-2 win over the Jets and improved ’em to 18-0-2 on Garden ice in 2022-23.

  • “It gives you an opportunity to [get back in the game],” Bruins winger Jake DeBrusk said of the bounce that led to Pastrnak’s goal. “I think it’s one of those things that doesn’t happen very much and we get some good bounces in this arena. I can attest to that with probably a couple of my goals over the years.

    “But it’s one of those things where you always do that with the intent to hopefully get one of those. And like I said, just an opportunity for a team to reset and get back out in the next couple of shifts I thought were good and several from there.”

    In a two-goal hole just 7:20 into the opening frame as the Bruins hung Jeremy Swayman out to dry for two goals on four shots faced, the Pastrnak goal brought some life back to the Bruins’ blades, and brought TD Garden out of their nap.

    And the Bruins made sure it was not wasted energy, with a Jake DeBrusk follow-up goal scored on the power play just 2:52 after Pastrnak’s goal, which brought the sides back even through 40 minute of action.

  • Knotted up at 2-2 in the third, the Bruins finally broke through Hellebuyck with the go-ahead goal behind a Nick Foligno chip through Hellebuyck at the 11:08 mark of the third period.

    The goal, which was Foligno’s sixth of the year and first since Dec. 9 in Arizona, was all the Bruins needed in the third period en route to a 25-save performance from Swayman for his seventh win of the season.

    But the win would not be complete without some added drama, as the Jets’ Kyle Connor found the puck on his stick and all alone between the circles for a glorious chance on Swayman with about ten seconds remaining in the game.

    “Just get in front of it,” Swayman said of the thoughts he had when he saw Connor in that spot. “I typically don’t look at the clock. I knew it was getting late, though. Luckily I think it missed the net a little bit, but yeah. Just play in front of it.”

  • With his second-period goal, Bruins winger Jake DeBrusk collected the 200th point of his NHL career. Drafted with the No. 14 overall pick in 2015, DeBrusk’s 104 goals are the 10th-most among all members of the 2015 class, while his 200 points are the 18th-most.

    “It’s awesome,” DeBrusk said of hitting the milestone. “I think that I knew I was close to both those at the start of this year and it was nice to hit it with a goal. That’s kind of how I like to do things.”

    Craig Smith, who has been a whirlwind of a paper transaction shuffle between Boston and Providence, once again skated in a fourth-line role for the Bruins in this contest, and finished with one shot in 7:58 of time on ice. With Smith in and zero changes on the backend, A.J. Greer and Jakub Zboril sat as Boston’s healthy scratches.

    The victory pushed Boston’s home winning streak over the Jets up to three games, and the Bruins have a 10-1-1 home record against Winnipeg since the franchise moved from Atlanta to Winnipeg in 2011.

    The Bruins will have a quick turnaround with a Friday night showdown in New Jersey.

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