Coming off a West Coast road trip that saw the Boston Bruins go 3-0-1 and secure seven out of a possible eight points, they returned to the TD Garden on Thursday night to host the Nashville Predators. Looking to avoid the dreaded flat performance coming off a long road trip, head coach Marco Sturm made sure his club wouldn't have one.
Whatever he said pregame, his club listened as they scored two goals in the first two periods and rode the hot hand of Michael DiPietro between the pipes to pick up a 6-0 win to improve to 8-2-1 on the season. Here are four takeaways from an impressive victory.
Bruins came out flying in the first period
When it comes to lengthy road trips each season for the NHL, the long ones can be difficult to recover from. Two games are always circled on the schedule when it is released. The last game of the trip and the first one back home.
In the last game of the four-game road trip on Tuesday night, the Bruins held a 2-1 lead going into the third period against the Dallas Stars before allowing a late goal. They appeared to run out of steam and ended up losing 3-2 in overtime. However, the first game back was a short one in terms of rest, hosting the Predators on Thursday night.
Boston came out flying and scored a pair of goals, one early from Casey Mittilstadt and one late in the period from Elias Lindholm for a 2-0 lead. They outshot Nashville, 11-7, in the opening 20 minutes and clearly had a shot mentality. It's what you wanted to see,
MIchael DiPietro
DiPietro got his first home start after the first two were on the road against the Minnesota Wild and Anaheim Ducks. He split those decisions, but boy, was he sharp against Nashville. He was solid from the start and came up with some big saves, especially in the second period.
With the Bruins leading 2-0, he made two tremendous point-blank saves on Maverick Bourque and then Alex Kerfoot on the rebound. Those were big saves, as Pastrnak and Peterka were able to double the lead. DiPietro finished with 28 saves and once again, looked every bit the part of deserving to be Jeremy Swayman's backup this season.
David Pastrnak, have a night
One way to make sure there isn't a hangover from a long road trip is to have your best player lead the way, and that was what David Pastrnak did. He picked up two assists and had two goals to lead the way offensively.
He set up Mittlestadt for the game's first goal early in the first period, then redirected a Charlie McAvoy shot in the second period for a 3-0 lead. He later set up JJ Peterka for a goal in the middle period. Pastrnak had a slap pass to Peterka, who redirected the first shot off the post before poking home the rebound for a 4-0 advantage.
Bruins avoid serious injury with Morgan Geekie
So far, so good when it comes to injuries and the Bruins early in this season. Pavel Zacha suffered one against the Anaheim Ducks last Friday night, missed the game the following night against the Los Angeles Kings, but returned in Dallas. In the first period, Morgan Geekie suffered what appeared to be a lower-body injury and went down the tunnel with a limp. However, what looked like a serious injury, he came back for the second period. A sigh of relief.
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