In Boston, the power outage for the Bruins continued on Thursday night, this time courtesy of Casey DeSmith who made 30 saves in a 4-1 win for the Pittsburgh Penguins.
Brad Marchand was the lone goal scorer for Boston.
“They’re a good team,” Marchand said. “They compete hard, they’ve won, they know what it takes, they still have the majority of their core in there. We have to bring our best game when we want to compete with them, so we need a better effort on Saturday.”
The Pens had not won in Boston in since 2014.
“It’s been a long time and it was definitely something we talked about,” the Penguins’ Zach Aston-Reese said. “I know [Kris Letang] went with the mustache, and I didn’t really see his suit, but I guess he wore a pretty flashy suit. I know a lot of guys changed things up and got coffees at different spots, things like that. So definitely we were trying to do everything we could to snap that streak.”
Aston-Reese and Mike Matheson scored in the second period for Pittsburgh for a 2-0 lead.
“I just think it’s an overall complete game,” Penguins head coach Mike Sullivan said. “I love the start we had, I thought we had great energy in the first period. I thought our attack was really strong, whether it was with the puck or without the puck. You know, there were times when we put pucks in behind their defensemen and established a pretty good puck-pursuit game, and that’s when I think our team’s at its best, when we’re playing on our toes like that.”
Jason Zucker restored the two-goal lead after Marchand cut it to 2-1 in the third period.
“It was a heck of a play by Marcus [Pettersson] to step up at the red line, and then an even better play by Rodrigues to give me that pass,” Zucker said. “So at that point it’s just getting the puck on net. But you know it was, again, a big goal at that point in the game.”
Jake Guentzel sealed the win with an empty-net goal.
“Well it’s great from our standpoint,” Sullivan said of ending the losing streak at Boston. “I can only speak for myself personally, but it’s nice to get a win here. You know this is not an easy building to play in, this is a real good team and has been for a number of years. And so it’s always a big challenge when you come here. I thought the guys played really hard tonight.”
Dan Vladar made 19 saves in the loss.
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