The Bruins allowed a goal on the first shot of the game, and then went historic on Mike Sullivan and the Rangers on the way to a 10-2 victory Saturday at TD Garden.
The 10-goal outing was the Black and Gold’s first 10-goal game since 1988, powered by dueling hat tricks from Pavel Zacha and Marat Khusnutdinov (four goals), while David Pastrnak tied a franchise record with six assists in the win.
For Boston, it marked the ‘double hat trick’ for the club since 1964.
“We had a really good day [and] they had a really bad day,” Bruins head coach Marco Sturm said following his team’s second straight victory and their fourth in five games.
This game had just about everything the Bruins could’ve wanted out of their team, with Boston really taking control of things despite giving up the early goal. Speaking after the game, Sturm said that he felt good about the B’s game after Khusnutdinov responded with a goal of his own, which came just 1:07 after New York’s tally.
In goal, Swayman rebounded from the slow start by stopping 27 of the next 28 shots that followed, including a penalty shot save on Vinny Trocheck in the second period.
The Bruins did deal with a pair of issues in this game, however, as they lost both Morgan Geekie and Elias Lindholm before the final horn.
Geekie’s departure came due to a family emergency, while Lindholm’s early exit was precautionary on the part of the Bruins with the game out of reach for the Rangers and with Lindholm battling through some nagging injuries.
Sturm said that Geekie’s situation is ‘all good’ and said that both he and Lindholm will be game-time decisions for Sunday’s 5 p.m. head-to-head with the Penguins.