3 Bruins takeaways from thrilling overtime win over Kings

Over the last six seasons, the Los Angeles Kings have had a lot of success at the TD Garden against the Boston Bruins. The visitors have won five of the last six games played in Boston, and each game has gone to overtime. Saturday afternoon, the two teams met in an early-season battle and you guessed it, it needed more than 60 minutes.

This time, however, the Bruins were not going to let history repeat itself on home ice as they rallied from a deficit for the third consecutive game. Their comeback fell short in the opener, but they were able to complete the comeback against the Montreal Canadiens Thursday night and then against the Kings. After falling behind 1-0 in the second period, they rallied to tie it before David Pastrnak buried the game-winner 3:07 into overtime for a 2-1 win. Here are three takeaways from a thrilling victory.

Bruins power play was not good...... again

Three games into the 2024-25 season and the Bruins' power play is a little concerning. Against Los Angeles, it was not very good. In fact, on their first two opportunities in the first period, the better chances were for the Kings shorthanded.

Through their first three chances, they had just two shots on the net in six minutes, which is not good. Lack of puck movement, zone entries, and the Kings all played a role in it. On the flip side, the Kings' power play was dangerous all afternoon and their puck movement led to the game's first goal, even though it came right after Nikita Zadorov's penalty expired, by Trevor Moore. Again, it's early in the season, but it needs to be fixed.

Jeremy Swayman steals one for Bruins

Let's not sugarcoat it, it was once again a game where Jeremy Swayman bailed out his teammates. Not only did he keep them in the game early, he made some big saves after they fell behind 1-0 and then in the third period and overtime after they rallied to tie it, allowing Pastrnak to net the game-winner in the extra session.

It was his second consecutive game in less than 48 hours, but as usual, he was up to the challenge less than a week after officially signing with the Black and Gold. He was sharp all afternoon, taking away angles, squaring up to the shot, and looking calm, cool, and collected. He finished with 32 saves, including two big ones in overtime.

The kids set up game-winning goal

Late in overtime, Jim Montgomery had Matthew Poitras and Mason Lohrei on the ice in the 3-on-3 and they set up Pastrnak. Lohrei won a puck battle near the offensive blueline which ended up on Poitras' stick. He made a cross-ice pass to Pastrnak who had a drop pass for Lohrei and the youngster set up his goal-scoring teammate in front of Darcy Kuemper and he ended the game with a five-hole goal.

Lohrei drew back into the lineup after sitting out Thursday night's win over the Montreal Canadiens and playing in the season-opening loss to the Florida Panthers and he made a big impact. Poitras played in his first game of the season after missing the first two games injured and even though he was tired after a long overtime shift, he made the key play to get the winner in motion.

Things don't get any easier with the Panthers coming to town Monday afternoon for the annual Columbus Day game. Boston will be looking for some revenge for the season-opening loss in South Florida on Tuesday night.