After winning twice during their recent three-game Central Division road trip, the Boston Bruins are now looking for some home cooking as they navigate the ultra-tight Eastern Conference playoff race.
Boston remains at TD Garden through the Christmas holiday break, playing the first of five straight home games with a matchup against the Utah Mammoth on Tuesday night.
A 6-2 Sunday loss at the Minnesota Wild marked a stumble at the end of the road trip for the Bruins, but coach Marco Sturm is happy with his team’s form. In the previous two games, Boston had struck for five and six goals to defeat the St. Louis Blues and Winnipeg Jets, respectively.
“I’m very happy with the games we played. Even (against Minnesota), half of the game was pretty solid,” Sturm said. “We go home over .500, that’s exactly what we wanted. Guys dug in, guys played hard.”
On top of the results, the Bruins have gotten healthier over the past week with forward David Pastrnak and defenseman Charlie McAvoy both returning from injury absences.
Pastrnak has two goals and five assists in three games since returning, including a four-point performance in Thursday’s 6-3 win at Winnipeg. McAvoy had the primary assist on a Pastrnak power-play goal in that game.
“I just try to play the right way,” Pastrnak said last week. “When you’re winning, it’s much easier to just join the group. … They were playing great hockey when guys were out.”
Sturm hopes that there is no concern about the status of forward Morgan Geekie (team-leading 22 goals), who returned Sunday in the second period and finished the game after blocking a shot late in the first.
Alex Steeves and Andrew Peeke scored Boston’s goals in Minnesota. Steeves has four in his last six games.
“I don’t think we should get too high or too low here. We’ve been doing some good stuff,” defenseman Hampus Lindholm said. “Try to learn from games like (Sunday), get home and have some good wins there at the TD Garden.”
Utah stops in Boston for the second game of a three-game trip which continues Wednesday against the Detroit Red Wings, and it looks to sweep the head-to-head season series from the Bruins following a 3-2 win in Salt Lake City on Oct. 19.
The Mammoth are coming off a 5-4 overtime victory over the Pittsburgh Penguins on Sunday, completing a three-goal comeback win for the first time in franchise history. Dylan Guenther scored the deciding goal 42 seconds into the extra session.
The winner coming from Guenther was no surprise. Not only was it his team-best 15th goal of the season and fifth in the last four games, but it marked his league-leading 14th game-winner since the start of last season.
“Obviously the skill, the shot, everything, but he doesn’t change the way he plays when the pressure mounts. He believes he will do it,” Utah coach Andre Tourigny said of Guenther.
Michael Carcone netted two of the team’s four goals in the third period and Karel Vejmelka faced just 16 shots in the game for Utah, which has won back-to-back games since a three-game skid.
Despite the score, the Mammoth outshot Pittsburgh 37-16 and scored their fifth power-play goal over the last seven games.
“What I did like is the guys in the room and on the bench said the right things all night long,” Tourigny said. “They didn’t panic. It did not go the way we wanted for a little while in terms of the score, but we were playing well.”
Utah’s true team effort was another key part of the comeback. Defensemen Nate Schmidt and Sean Durzi also scored as the team’s four-line contributions continued.
“The group really cares about each other,” Durzi said. “We care about having success as a team and I think (we) did a good job taking care of each other (on Sunday).”
–Field Level Media
