Recap: Ullmark leads Bruins to 2-1 win over Coyotes

It was by no means pretty or impressive, but the Boston Bruins got the win out in the desert on Friday, grabbing a 2-1 win over the Arizona Coyotes.

Linus Ullmark made 30 saves to get his 15th win of the season. Erik Haula and Charlie McAvoy were the two goal scorers while David Pastrnak dished out two assists.

Boston now sits at 25-13-3 while Arizona is 10-28-4.

1st period

Pastrnak helped get the Bruins on the score board early. Left alone in the Coyotes’ zone, he faked like he was going to deke Scott Wedgewood and instead, found Haula in the slot for the one-timer.

However, the Coyotes were able to find the back of the net before the end of the period.

Shayne Gostibehere made a slick move at the point, faking the shot and then sliding it to the far side to Nick Schmaltz for the one-timer. Not anything Ullmark could do there with Schmaltz left unattended.

Period remained tied to end.

2nd period

The Bruins regained the lead on the power play with a McAvoy shot that beat Wedgewood blocker side.

That was all either team managed in the second.

3rd period

In the final 20 minutes, both Ullmark and Wedgewood locked it down for both sides.

Neither team could find anything on offense and the Bruins held onto a 2-1 score for the victory.

Notes

• Was there anything impressive about this game other than Ullmark? Not really. Wedgewood played well but the Bruins were just very bland and blah and boring
• Pasrnak’s feed to Haula was nice! When he first passed it, my first thought was, “how do you not shoot it there”, but I got to about “not” in that sentence before the puck was in the net and I was eating my own words
• Pastrnak has been sensational as of late. I know Marchand is still the team MVP but offensively, Pasta’s on a heater. He’s on a eight-game point streak with 19 points in January, that’s nearly half his point total on the season (40)
• Tuukka Rask was a scratch due to a lower-body injury. Not sure how long he’ll be out but they had Troy Grosenick called up from the taxi squad last night to backup Ullmark and Jeremy Swayman was scratched from his AHL start, which likely means he’ll meet the team in Dallas for Sunday
• It was cool to see some potential Bruins trade targets up front aka Jakob Chychrun, Lawson Crouse and Phil Kessel

They do not ask how, they ask how many. But the how was a bit concerning Friday night.

The Bruins will finish the road trip in Dallas on Sunday where we could potentially see the return of Swayman. That’s a team that is struggling and the Bruins have no reason why they shouldn’t head back to Boston coming off a win and concluding the trip with five out of six points.