In Nashville, the visiting Bruins handed the Predators a 3-0 loss on Tuesday night.
It was the third straight loss for the Preds after their 18-game point streak ended.
“Spectacular,” Boston coach Jim Montgomery said of Ullmark’s performance. “You know, I thought their goalie was really good, too. But our goalie was like an onslaught. He had to be down in his crouch, he had to be finding pucks through a lot of traffic and a lot of great plays that they were able to make at times. He made some saves look easy.”
The game entered the third period in a scoreless tie. The Bruins hit for their three markers in a span of just over five minutes in the back half of the frame.
Linus Ullmark made 32 saves for his second shutout of the season.
“We played a full 60 minutes and showed we don’t get frustrated easily,” Ullmark said. “We kept sticking with it. We did a great job penalty killing as well, and obviously a couple of clutch goals from [Coyle and Zacha]. That was really nice.”
The Bruins improved to 44-17-15 off their third win in four matches.
They are now four points clear of the Florida Panthers atop the Atlantic Division. The Panthers dropped a 5-3 decision to the Canadiens in Montreal.
The Predators dropped to 43-28-4.
“I thought it was a great hockey game,” Predators coach Andrew Brunette said. “I thought it was a playoff-type game. I thought we went toe-to-toe with a really good hockey team. I actually thought we got better as the game got on. I really liked our second and third periods where I thought we were taking over the game. We put ourselves in great position for somebody to make a play. Unfortunately, we made a play going the wrong way.”
Nashville is still three points clear of the Los Angeles Kings for the first wild card spot in the Western Conference.
In the third period, the Bruins’ Charlie Coyle broke the ice in the game at 13:18, scoring off a shorthanded breakaway for a 1-0 lead.
“Those are playoff-type games where it’s 0-0 or low scoring or whatever it is,” Coyle said. “It’s kind of a battle to see what team will break first. That’s stuff we kind of talk about in between periods and on the bench. There’s always things you can fine-tune throughout the game, and we addressed those. But our overall game, you don’t want to stray away from that. We figured we’d get our opportunities if we just stuck to it.”
Pavel Zacha extended the Boston lead to 2-0 at 17:18, scoring off a slick set of passes.
David Pastrnak padded the lead when he hit an empty net at 18:36 for the 3-0 final count on the scoreboard. .
“We couldn’t really set up,” Nashville’s Roman Josi said. “It felt like we never really got set. The entries we kind of got in, but we couldn’t get set. They pressure pretty hard, but we needed to make some plays just to get set and couldn’t really do that tonight.”
Juuse Saros made 30 saves in the loss.
You must be logged in to post a comment.