BOSTON — The Boston Bruins displayed perhaps their most grit in order to pull out a 4-3 shootout victory over the New York Islanders at TD Garden on Tuesday night.
Both teams stuck around for a flat-out battle, which consisted of two equalizers in regulation from the Islanders’ offense along with a scoreless overtime period. David Pastrnak sent New York packing when he netted the game-decider in the shootout.
Head coach Jim Montgomery was thrilled following the win and praised what he described as both an “incredible” and “gutsy” showing from the Bruins.
“It’s an incredible effort,” Montgomery said. “It’s such a gutsy effort by that group in there. To will themselves against a really good hockey team.”
Boston entered their latest home contest just two days removed from a 3-1 road win over the Vegas Golden Knights. Flying across the country with just one day of rest certainly posed a noticeable challenge for the Bruins. Montgomery addressed said challenge and acknowledged Boston’s relatively lackluster play to begin the night, which then picked up when they needed it most.
“This is the game that we looked like we were set up to fail,” Montgomery said. “Everybody goes through it. There’s a couple of games every year where you look like you should have success and there’s games where it looks like it’s gonna be a real battle. We were sluggish in the first — probably our worst period of the year. And second period we started getting our legs going.”
Montgomery added: “What are we now, 23-4? Incredible record, but I still think we can get better. I don’t know if we’re gonna keep winning. That’d be great if we do but we’re gonna keep getting better.”
Pavel Zacha, who supplied the Bruins with a team-leading two assists in the win, noted Boston has a “winning component” in its DNA.
“This is the mentality here and the winning concept of the Bruins,” Zacha said. “… I’m just happy to be part of the team and getting better with them.”
Here are more notes from Tuesday’s Bruins-Islanders game:
— After Jake DeBrusk netted two goals in the opening period, Boston improved to 16-0 in games where they score first.
“It’s a lot of character,” DeBrusk said. “It’s not necessarily the game we wanted, by any means, and you can tell there was definitely some fatigue from travel. We had every excuse in the book to lose this one.”
— DeBrusk recorded his second multi-goal game of the season and the first since Oct. 17. against the Florida Panthers.
— The Bruins notched their 15th home win and remained atop the NHL in that category.
— After going scoreless in the third period, the Bruins remain tied (with the Edmonton Oilers) for the league-lead in final-period goals. Trailing both teams, by one, are the Islanders.
— The Bruins return to the ice on Thursday to face off against the Los Angeles Kings. Puck drop from TD Garden is set for 7 p.m. ET, and you can watch the game, plus with an hour of pregame coverage, live on NESN.
