Bruins Notes: Boston ‘Gritted’ Out Win Vs. Coyotes Despite Key Absences

The Boston Bruins had a tough task ahead of them before Saturday afternoon’s 5-3 victory over the Arizona Coyotes.

Fresh off a dissapointing defeat to the Buffalo Sabres, the Bruins took the ice without the assistance of Derek Forbort and Charlie McAvoy. Then after puck drop with Arizona at TD Garden, center Pavel Zacha went down with an upper-body injury after 6:42 elapsed in the first period.

It was clear what Boston needed from then on to get back in the win column.

“What we needed was high-end effort. I thought we were led by (Hampus Lindholm, Brandon Carlo and Matt Grzelcyk),” Bruins head coach Jim Montgomery said, as seen on NESN’s postgame coverage. “You know, it wasn’t a great game by any means — by the way we wanna play with our structure — but we gritted it out. It’s hard to get two points in this league and I’m glad we were able to win on home ice.”

Granted, it wasn’t easy, nor was that how it looked.

After David Pastrnak and Charlie Coyle scored consecutively within 48 seconds to give the Bruins a 2-0 first-period lead, the Coyotes came back hungry. Arizona didn’t give in, scoring three times in the final two periods, although Pastrnak bailed the B’s out with a second goal in the final frame to stretch the advantage to two with 5:31 minutes left.

As easily as the Coyotes snagged momentum, Pastrnak and the Bruins took it right away.

“That’s the beauty of this sport,” Pastrnak said postgame, per NESN. “It’s a long season and you get to bounce back.”

Here are more notes from Saturday’s Bruins-Coyotes game:

— Pastrnak’s two-goal performance raised his season total in points to 39, ranking him third on the NHL leaderboard, tied with J.T. Miler of the Vancouver Canucks and behind Nikita Kucherov (44) of the Tampa Bay Lightning.

— Pastrnak’s multi-goal showing was the 27-year-old’s first since Oct. 28 against the Detroit Red Wings.

— Linus Ullmark improved to 4-1-0 in starts after a loss, making 31 saves, including 12 on 13 high-danger shots.

— The Bruins improved to a still-Atlantic Division-best 18-5-3 with the win.

— Boston will next head off to New Jersey to take on the Devils on Wednesday night. Puck drop from Prudential Center is set for 7:30 p.m. ET, and the game will be aired on TNT.

The Bruins return to the NESN airwaves on Friday night with Boston finishing off that two-game road trip against the New York Islanders. Puck drop from UBS Arena is set for 7:30 p.m., following a full hour of pregame coverage.