Morgan Geekie clinched his fifth multi-goal game of the season before the Boston Bruins separated with a pair of third-period goals on the way to a 4-1 win over the visiting Utah Mammoth on Tuesday night.
Geekie scored in each of the first two frames, including the eventual game-winner 23 seconds into the second. He remains second in the NHL with 24 goals on the season.
Casey Mittelstadt and Michael Eyssimont also scored, while David Pastrnak registered two assists for the Bruins, who are 5-1-0 in their last six games and have won four straight at home.
Boston’s Jeremy Swayman made 12 of his 20 saves in the first period while backstopping penalty kills in the latter two stanzas.
Barrett Hayton netted the lone goal and Vitek Vanecek stopped 19 shots for Utah, which has lost four of six. Vanecek is 0-6-1 in his last seven starts.
The Mammoth power play worked until the final seconds to score the opening goal at 8:34. Hayton cut from the wing toward the net front to deflect a Sean Durzi point shot through Swayman.
Swayman made several key saves thereafter to keep the score at 1-0, then Geekie equalized with the Bruins a man up with 3:59 left before intermission. A great puck-moving sequence saw Pastrnak feed a cross-ice pass to Geekie, who wired home a shot from the left circle.
Geekie wasted little time in the second to give Boston its first lead, setting a screen in front and turning around to bang in a Pastrnak rebound. Elias Lindholm’s faceoff win set up the play.
The Bruins were unable to extend their 2-1 edge before the middle frame ended despite putting a flurry of shots on Vanecek during a delayed penalty sequence and the ensuing power play in the final six minutes. Pavel Zacha was robbed on a point-blank chance from the right crease.
Swayman saved Clayton Keller’s shot from the circle during an early Utah power play in the third, holding the one-goal margin until Boston grew its lead at 10:16. Mittelstadt dished to Zacha in transition, but after Zacha’s shot sailed wide and bounced off the end wall, Mittelstadt gathered the puck and shot in the rebound from the bottom of the right dot.
Eyssimont gave the Bruins a 4-1 lead with 3:58 left in the third, making a steal at the defensive blue line to set up a surge past a defender for a breakaway and a backhand finish in the crease.
–Field Level Media
