In Boston, the Bruins trailed the New Jersey Devils, 2-0 in the middle frame. Their response was to score four times in the middle frame, and once om more in the third period to grab a 5-2 win on Saturday.
Linus Ullmark made 31 saves in the win.
Boston moved to 21-7-6.
“I loved the response of the bench,” Bruins coach Jim Montgomery said. “We felt we were playing a good game. We felt we were playing to our identity, and we felt we were playing Bruins hockey. And that played itself out. Players were competing, I thought we were physical tonight.”
New Jersey took the 2-0 lead on goals in the first and second periods.
Nico Hischier struck in the opening stanza,hitting for a power play goal at 6:03.
“Obviously, we lost this game, and we weren’t good in the second period, but I think the first and third period, we can take good things out of it,” Hischier said. “But like I said, especially against this team, 20 minutes is enough to lose a game.”
Luke Hughes pushed the lead to 2-0 71 seconds into the middle frame.
New Jersey dropped to 19-14-2.
“We lost a couple battles down low, and both of those plays ended up being goals against,” Devils coach Lindy Ruff said. “Those types of mistakes against a team like that, they’re going to take advantage of [them].”
Boston got the rally started with a strike by Jake DeBrusk at 5:35 of the middle frame to trim the deficit to 2-1.
“I haven’t felt this all year, so it’s nice to kind of be back, in that sense of things,” DeBrusk said. “Obviously, it was a great play by ‘Marchy.’ … I think it was just nice having a reset, honestly, in the [holiday] break.”
David Pastrnak scored the next two goals for the Bruins, his first knotted it up at 2-2 at 12:51 of the second.
From there, the Bruins were skating downhill.
“If you make mistakes, if you kind of take a gear off or whatnot, take a shift off, it usually doesn’t result in good things,” New Jersey’s Erik Haula said. “But overall, I think both teams had chances. Very unfortunate second period.”
Pastrnak’s double came at 15:39 for a 3-2 lead to the Bruins., skating to the front of the net and deking around Vanecek.
“Initially, I was thinking about shooting high glove,” Pastrnak said. “But I had quick look, and I had a lot of speed, so it’s hard for the goaltender to kind of follow me all the way to the far post.”
Kevin Shattenkirk, who also had a double for Boston, pushed the lead to 4-2 headed to the third period.
His 100th career NHL goal came at 17:14.
Shattenkirk potted his double at 16:49 of the third for the 5-2 final count.
“Coming off of a big break like that, especially with how we finished going into Christmas, there could have been a lot to dwell on,” Shattenkirk said. “But everyone did a great job of resetting, and really just starting fresh and making sure that we focused on building our game, and I think that’s what these past two games have been.”
Vitek Vanecek made 27 saves in the loss.
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