Charlie McAvoy and Charlie Coyle each scored twice as the Boston Bruins celebrated their centennial anniversary with a 6-3 win over the visiting Montreal Canadiens on Sunday afternoon.
McAvoy’s goals bookended Boston’s 4-0 run to start the game, which included a span of three goals in 1:10 during the back half of the first period. It was the 26-year-old defenseman’s third career two-goal effort.
Cole Koepke had a goal and an assist, and David Pastrnak also scored in his 700th career game for the Bruins, who improved to 4-2-0 under interim coach Joe Sacco by beating their archrivals for the second time this season.
Jeremy Swayman backstopped the win with a 26-save performance.
Cole Caufield netted a pair of goals, Emil Heineman also scored and Nick Suzuki recorded two assists to help Montreal cut its deficit from 5-1 to 5-3 in the third.
Cayden Primeau stopped 24 shots for Montreal, which lost for the second straight day.
McAvoy got Boston’s furious attack going at the 11:45 mark, corralling Jordan Oesterle’s D-to-D pass before driving down the right wing and circling the goal to finish a wraparound inside Primeau’s stick-side post.
Boston’s lead doubled at 12:40. After Primeau made a point-blank stop on Pavel Zacha, the center got the puck back and dished to Pastrnak for a wrist-shot goal from the right dot.
Fifteen seconds later, Coyle gave the Bruins a 3-0 lead when he pulled back the rebound of Mark Kastelic’s shot and lifted in a backhand.
The Bruins needed only 38 seconds of the middle frame to extend their lead to 4-0. Thirteen seconds into a Nikita Zadorov delay of game penalty, McAvoy sprung ahead for a short-handed breakaway and beat Primeau to his right.
Montreal broke the shutout at 5:42 of the second after Arber Xhekaj walked the blue line, cut down the right wing and triggered a backhander from the bottom of the circle that deflected off Caufield and past Swayman.
Needing just 21 seconds of third-period time to find the net again, Coyle took Koepke’s pass on the rush and tucked his second of the game between Primeau’s skate and the post.
Heineman started the Canadiens’ late burst at 2:28, ripping home a feed from Jake Evans as he strode to the top of the right dot.
Caufield collected a cross-ice pass from Suzuki and fired a wrist shot from the bottom of the left circle to bring Montreal within 5-3 at 6:38.
Koepke punctuated the win with an empty-net goal with 2:14 left.
Sunday’s contest was played exactly 100 years to the day after the Bruins’ first-ever NHL game, a 2-1 win over the Montreal Maroons on Dec. 1, 1924 at Boston Arena. Pre-game ceremonies included several alumni representatives of each era in the franchise’s history.
–Field Level Media
