The Boston Bruins built a three-goal lead after two periods and rattled off a three-goal third in a dominating 6-1 win over the visiting Winnipeg Jets on Thursday night.
Boston (38-23-8, 84 points) received goals from six scorers, including Lukas Reichel, who tallied the game-winner and added an assist in his team debut.
David Pastrnak, Viktor Arvidsson and Pavel Zacha also had a goal and an assist each, Fraser Minten and Jonathan Aspirot also scored and Casey Mittelstadt dished out two assists to help the Bruins to their 14th win in 15 home games.
Jeremy Swayman made 23 saves en route to his fifth win in seven March decisions (5-1-1) for Boston, which remains tied atop the Eastern Conference wild-card race with the Detroit Red Wings.
Jonathan Toews scored a power-play goal and Connor Hellebuyck — facing his U.S. Olympic teammate Swayman in the other net — stopped 21 shots for Winnipeg (28-29-11, 67 points), which was 2-0-1 in its previous three games.
Boston killed off a Pastrnak double-minor for high-sticking midway through the first before Swayman helped set the table for the game-opening goal with a crucial save on Mark Scheifele, who fired a wrister from the right side on one of several early odd-man rushes against him.
Pastrnak opened the scoring with an unassisted goal at 14:52, taking advantage of Kyle Connor’s turnover and settling a puck out of mid-air to fire home a shot from the left circle.
Reichel made it a two-goal game 6:23 into the second period. The Boston debutant charged into the offensive zone and buried a puck that bounced awkwardly off the back wall as Hellebuyck came out of his crease.
Swayman made another huge stop, going post-to-post on Gabriel Vilardi in the late stages in the second, and Arvidsson upped the Boston lead to three as he got credit for the goal off a defender’s deflection with 1:44 left before intermission.
The Bruins needed just 3:15 of third-period time to take a 4-0 lead, as Mittelstadt slipped a back pass to Zacha to laser a wrister from the left dot.
Winnipeg drew its first first minor power play of the game less than two minutes later and broke Swayman’s shutout bid at 5:38. Toews tipped in Elias Salomonsson’s shot from the high slot out of the bumper position in the slot.
Boston punctuated the victory with two goals in the final five minutes. Minten slotted home Pastrnak’s spinning centering pass with 4:08 left before Morgan Geekie set up Aspirot’s top-shelf wrister with 1:42 to go.
–Field Level Media
