The Penguins visited the Bruins on Saturday, March 9th at TD Garden. Pittsburgh took an unfortunate second loss straight after a victory that ended a three-game skid, and Boston won their second-straight game with a 5-1 victory. David Pastrnak scored his 40th goal of the season and Pavel Zacha scored twice, also recording an assist. Linus Ullmark made a total of 38 saves for Boston in their win.
Penguins lineup against the Bruins:
Bunting – Crosby – Rakell
Smith – Malkin – Puustinen
Puljujarvi – Eller – Bemstrom
Gruden – Acciari – Carter
Joseph – Letang
Pettersson – Karlsson
Graves – Ludvig
Nedeljkovic
Jarry
Bruins lineup against the Penguins:
Marchand – Coyle – DeBrusk
Heinen – Zacha – Pastrnak
van Riemsdyk – Geekie – Frederic
Lauko – Boqvist – Brazeau
Grzelcyk – McAvoy
Lindholm – Carlo
Lohrei – Shattenkirk
Ullmark
Swayman
The entire first period remained scoreless, the Penguins outshot the Bruins 13-9… In the second, David Pastrnak opened the scoring early at 17:34. Pastrnak scored from the high slot with a one-timer, becoming the fourth Boston Bruins player to have four 40-goal seasons. Pavel Zacha pushed it to 2-0 during the power play for his 16th goal of the season at 7:12. He deflected a pass up from Morgan Geekie, getting the puck in from the right side of the net. Making it a 3-0 lead for the Bruins with 1:35 remaining in the middle frame, Brad Marchand lifted the puck to the top right corner with his backhand for his 27th of the season after taking the pass from Charlie Coyle into the middle.
Kris Letang put Pittsburgh on the board early into the third period at 17:09 to cut it 3-1 when he scored a slap shot from the left point, Sidney Crosby getting the assist for his 32nd of the season. Jake DeBrusk went for his 15th goal of the season to make it a 4-1 game off a cross-ice pass from Brad Marchand. Later into the final frame at 4:27, Pavel Zacha struck his second of the night for the 5-1 final. The Penguins outshot the Bruins 39-23.
Sidney Crosby on how the team and Michael Bunting played, and his thoughts on whether he thinks playoffs are slipping away from them or if they stay positive in these types of situations: “I don’t think we got enough traffic. We got some shots but didn’t do a good enough job of getting those second opportunities… I think we just got to get a little more traffic and find a way to either get those rebounds or drop penalties,” – “He played really well, he’s strong on pucks and made some great plays. He had a great chance there on the breakaway early, but I think as a line, we just got to find ways to create offense, whether that’s off the rush or in the zone. Hopefully, with every game, we’ll get better and better. But I thought he played really well tonight – We know that it’s a lot of work to get there, but we got to find a way to just go at a game at a time at this point. You can’t grab all those points at once and we’re playing good teams, we’ve got to be ready to compete for that challenge and find a way here to get the next one and build off that.”
Brad Marchand on if he thinks the team is getting back on track: “We’ve been consistent the last few games – There’s a way we need to play to have success and we did that the last four nights, we gave ourselves an opportunity because we played the right way. We played above, at their speed, putting pucks in the right areas to get them back, and we weren’t going east-west. So, if we continue to do that, we’ll be good.”
David Pastrnak on his 40th goal: “I won’t take it for granted, obviously. It’s my job to score goals, but at the same time, you’re playing in the best league in the world, so I don’t take it for granted.”
Notes:
– David Pastrnak, Brad Marchand, and Jake DeBrusk all had a goal and an assist… Hampus Lindholm recorded two assists in his return after he had missed nine games with a lower-body injury.
Pastrnak reached the 40-goal mark for the third year in a row. He also has scored in two straight games after not scoring in the previous four. Linus Ullmark had lost each of his past six starts before Saturday, five came in overtime or a shootout.
– Pavel Zacha extended his point streak to four games (five goals, two assists).
– Alex Nedeljkovic made a total of 18 saves for Pittsburgh.
– Kris Letang’s goal had been his 164th, surpassing Dan Boyle for 33rd all-time among NHL defensemen.
