Trent Frederic registered his fourth career two-goal game and David Pastrnak had three assists to lead the Boston Bruins past the visiting Montreal Canadiens 5-2 on Saturday night.
The Bruins posted their second straight win and avenged last Saturday’s overtime loss in Montreal, scoring the game’s first three goals and four over the first two periods to build a lead that they would never relinquish.
Charlie McAvoy, Pavel Zacha and James van Riemsdyk also scored for Boston, while captain Brad Marchand and Charlie Coyle each dished out two assists.
Marchand set up McAvoy’s opening goal, becoming the eighth player in franchise history to post 500 career assists.
Jeremy Swayman improved to 7-0-1 on the season with a 20-save effort.
Juraj Slafkovsky had a goal and an assist, and Johnathan Kovacevic also scored for Montreal, which has lost four straight. Jake Allen made 39 saves.
The Bruins grabbed the lead during 1:47 of a 5-on-3 power play in the first. At 7:11, Marchand fed a puck to the top of the left circle where McAvoy fired home a one-time goal.
Frederic doubled Boston’s lead with 40 seconds left before the first intermission, tipping in Brandon Carlo’s point shot from between the circles.
Boston piled up 18 first-period shots and finished the game with a 44-22 advantage.
Allen made several key saves to keep Montreal within two, including two point-blank attempts by Danton Heinen after Mason Lohrei made a move around his defender at the point. Swayman had also stopped a Brendan Gallagher partial breakaway before Frederic’s last-minute goal.
Zacha upped the Bruins’ lead to 3-0 when Hampus Lindholm set up a one-timer that deflected off a Montreal stick 5:18 into the middle frame.
A run of established zone time allowed the Canadiens to break the shutout at the 13:04 mark, as Slafkovsky took Nick Suzuki’s centering feed from behind the goal line and sniped from the bottom of the left circle.
Frederic re-established the Bruins’ three-goal lead just over two minutes later at 15:30, breaking into the zone with speed off a Charlie Coyle feed and scoring past Allen’s blocker.
Van Riemsdyk scored Boston’s second man-up goal of the night 5:39 into the third, slipping home a backhand with Marchand also stationed in the crease.
Kovacevic banged in a loose puck in the blue paint to bring the Habs back within 5-2 with 4:31 left in regulation.
–Field Level Media
