Bruins throttle Pens, 5-1 Pastrnak scores 40th

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In Boston, the Bruins broke open a scoreless tie with three goals in the middle frame frame on Saturday en route to a 5-1 thrashing of the Pittsburgh Penguins. David Pastrnak scored his 40th of the campaign at 2:26 of the middle frame to get the offense rolling for the Bruins.

“I won’t take it for granted, obviously,” Pastrnak said about the milestone. “It’s my job to score goals, but at the same time, you’re playing in the best league in the world, so I don’t take it for granted.”

Linus Ullmark made 38 saves in the win.

Boston improved to 38-13-15.

“I think since the Islander game in particular (a 5-1 loss to New York on March 2), where we laid an egg, I think we’ve come back with four really good games in a row,” Bruins coach Jim Montgomery said.

Pavel Zacha, who had a double in the game, hit off the power play at 12:48 of the second for a 2-0 lead to Boston.

Brad Marchand made it 3-0 with under two minutes left in the second.

“We feel good about our group,” Marchand said. “I mean, we have all year. We added two tough pieces, two great guys in the room [Pat Maroon and Andrew Peeke before Friday’s trade deadline]. … Love our group, feel very confident in it and come playoff time, anything can happen, and we have a group we believe in and that’s what’s important.”

Pittsburgh dropped to 28-26-8 off their fifth loss in six games.

“There [were] parts of the game that we really liked,” Penguins coach Mike Sullivan said. “But like I said, there were other instances where I think we just shoot ourselves in the foot a little bit, which is a lack of awareness or diligence or whatever word you want to use to describe it. I just think we have to have a better understanding of game management.”

Kris Letang was the lone striker for the Penguins, his third period goal cut the Boston lead to 3-1.

The Bruins replied with a pair of goals in the third.

Jake DeBrusk added a marker midway through the third  for a 4-1 advantage.

“We had some looks pretty early and throughout the game,” Pittsburgh’s Michael Bunting said.

“Obviously, they’re right there, and we want to be able to capitalize on those looks.”

Zacha collected his double at 15:33 of the third for the 5-1 final count on the scoreboard.

Alex Nedeljkovic made 18 saves in the loss.

“It’s a lot of work to get [to the playoffs], but we’ve got to find a way to just go at it a game at a time at this point,” the Penguins’ Sidney Crosby said. “You can’t grab all those points at once, and we’re playing some good teams, so we’ve got to be ready to compete and for that challenge and find a way here to get the next one and build off that.”