In Boston, David Pastrnak scored a double, and the Bruins downed the Chicago Blackhawks, 3-1, on Wednesday night.
“I didn’t think we grew our game, but it’s the first game of the year,” Bruins coach Jim Montgomery said. “I didn’t think we played fast enough, consistently enough. … There’s a lot of things to work on, you expect that in Game 1. We got the result. We did a lot of good things.”
Linus Ullmark made 20 saves in the Boston win.
Connor Bedard scored his first NHL goal at 5:37 of the first period to give the Hawks a 1-0 lead.
“We didn’t have much in the first two periods other than [Bedard’s] goal,” Hawks coach Luke Richardson said. “We were a little bit sloppy, and the game was choppy today. Even the second period till the end, I think the scoring chances were 3-2. Not much going on offensively, both sides.”
The Bruins got even at 1-1 at 11:22 of the first on a marker from Trent Frederic .
“[Carlo’s] always shooting for tips, and I think I tipped a couple of his last year,” Frederic said. “They don’t all go in, but he’s definitely good at shooting. … It was a good play by him.”
Less than two minutes later, Pastrnak scored his first to give the Bruins a 2-1 advantage.
“We had a couple of shifts there together, and we’re able to connect on the goal there,” Boston’s Milan Lucic said. “It’s great to get the win, fun to contribute and start the season off with a big one.”
Pastrnak added his second of the night in an empty-net strike with 57 seconds left on the game clock.
“You just have to finish it,” Blackhawks forward Nick Foligno said. “That’s where our group is going to learn and try to get better from. We played that team hard. That’s a good team over there, too. It’s a 2-1 game, empty-netter, but we had our chances to tie it up as well.”
Arvid Soderblom made 32 saves in the Chicago loss.
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