BOSTON -- David Pastrnak had a goal and an assist for the Boston Bruins in a 7-3 win against the Tampa Bay Lightning at TD Garden on Saturday.
Trent Frederic scored twice, and Linus Ullmark made 23 saves for Boston (24-8-6), which has won five of its past six games.
“I really liked our third period. I thought we were smart,” Bruins coach Jim Montgomery said. “We didn’t give up an odd-man rush. We had numbers everywhere, and we kept hanging on to pucks in the offensive zone, making them defend so they didn’t have much energy to go the other way.”
Nikita Kucherov had a goal and two assists, and Brayden Point scored twice for Tampa Bay (19-17-5), which has lost four of its past six games. Andrei Vasilevskiy made 20 saves.
“Penalties hurt us early, kind of took the wind out of our sails,” Lightning coach Jon Cooper said. “We got ourselves back. I don’t know, it was a weird game. A lot of weird pucks going in the net. … Boston’s a heck of a team, but I don’t know, for us, we felt that could have been a winnable game, and you look up at the scoreboard and it’s 7-3. So, a little bit of a headshaker for me.”
Point gave the Lightning a 1-0 lead 21 seconds into the game, finishing off Kucherov’s pass from behind the net.
Frederic tied it 1-1 at 4:42 of the first. He received a shot pass from Kevin Shattenkirk, quickly spun toward the net, and lifted the puck over Vasilevskiy on the power play.
“Both power-play [units] were moving it really well,” Frederic said. “I’m just in front, so I was just standing there, but they were moving it well. ‘Shatty’ made a great play, and I was fortunate it just got up over [Vasilevskiy].”
Charlie McAvoy gave the Bruins a 2-1 lead at 14:56 with a shot through traffic.
Frederic pushed it to 3-1 at 1:49 of the second, banking a shot off Vasilevskiy from a tight angle.
The teams then traded goals 30 seconds apart while playing 4-on-4.
Kucherov cut it to 3-2 at 7:53 when he stole the puck on the forecheck and deked around Ullmark.
“Aside from letting in seven, I don’t think we really played that bad,” Lightning defenseman Calvin de Haan said. “You look at it after the game and you see the score, obviously you want to win, but I think we did some good things. I think there’s some things we can build on at the end of the day.”
Pastrnak responded to make it 4-2 at 8:23, holding off Tampa Bay defenseman Darren Raddysh on his way to the net and scoring on a partial breakaway.
“We tried to come back and we just kept giving up goals,” Lightning forward Brandon Hagel said. “So, you’ve got to be able to respond a little bit better than that and carry the momentum over instead of making mistakes and letting them just make it harder on us.”
Point cut it to 4-3 at 15:53. Kucherov pulled the puck between his legs down the right wing and passed to Point, who scored from the low slot.
Morgan Geekie made it 5-3 at 1:35 of the third with a wrist shot top shelf off a pass by Pastrnak.
“I saw [Pastrnak] out of the side of my eye when Hampus [Lindholm] had it, so I figured that’s who he was trying to pass it to,” Geekie said. “‘Pasta’ made a great play to draw the defender in, and I just tried to get a shot off as fast as I could.”
Jake DeBrusk scored a short-handed empty-net goal at 16:34 to make it 6-3, and Charlie Coyle scored on a breakaway at 17:14 for the 7-3 final.
“I think we did a really good job kind of keeping things simple and keeping them on the outside,” said Bruins forward Matthew Poitras, who had two assists. “They’ve got [a lot] of skilled guys over there, so we did a good job just trying to contain them.”
NOTES: Lightning forward Tanner Jeannot left the game at 12:08 of the second period after being hit from behind by Frederic. There was no update after the game. … Poitras played 11:01 in his first game since Dec. 16 after taking time away to play for Canada at the 2024 IIHF World Junior Championship.
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