Bruins Notes: Boston Returns To Form, Finds Identity In Win Vs. Sabres

Boston Bruins head coach Jim Montgomery said before Wednesday night’s game against the Buffalo Sabres that he didn’t expect to see a “Rembrandt” from his team following four days off during the NHL’s mandatory holiday freeze.

“You’re hoping to keep it simple, and you’re hoping to get better every 10 minutes,” Montgomery said, per the team. “Obviously every period as well, to get your game hopefully by the third.”

The Bruins responded.

A pair of goals in the first two periods, strong performances from both special teams units and solid goaltending helped the Bruins snap a four-game winless streak as they cruised past the Sabres at KeyBank Center to win the season series 2-1-0.

Charlie Coyle recorded his first career two-power-play goal game to lead the Bruins past the Sabres 4-1. Both of Coyle’s goals were assisted by Jake DeBrusk who snapped a six-game scoreless drought.

“I wouldn’t call it a beauty, but it was definitely a bank shot, and it was unintentional,” Coyle told Darren Pang on TNT’s postgame coverage. “But, of course, you take those, and it was awesome. I think pretty good entries, Jake DeBrusk finding me and putting it right on my stick. I didn’t have to do too much. Those guys made it easy.”

Jeremy Swayman made 25 saves in the game, 10 in the middle frame, to earn his 10th win of the season for the Bruins.

“Him and Linus Ullmark have been so huge for us all year,” Coyle said of Boston’s goaltending tandem. “We owe a lot to those guys. We can’t stop playing for them because they’ve bailed us out of so many games. Kept us in games. Won us games. It’s great to see him get rewarded for playing as well as he does.

“You love to see it. It builds confidence, and we have all the confidence when we’re playing in front of those guys just because of the way they play every night.”

Swayman earned the win, but that didn’t stop the Boston netminder from giving defenseman Charlie McAvoy a hug at the Bruins’ bench after he stopped an errant Buffalo shot from going into the back of the net.

The Bruins recorded three power-play goals in the game and stopped the Sabres on all six-man advantages they had, holding Buffalo to just five shots during the opportunities.

“Our game wasn’t at where we’d been playing for the most part this year, so we wanted to reset, come back, and start building our game again in this second part of the season,” Coyle said. “That was a pretty good effort for the most part.”

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More notes from Wednesday’s Bruins-Sabres game:

— The Bruins improved to 20-7-6 on the season, 14-2-3 when scoring first and 5-3-3 in December with two games remaining against the New Jersey Devils and Detroit Red Wings this month.

— DeBrusk’s two assists notched his first multi-point game of the season. The forward has four goals and nine assists for 13 points in 31 games.

— Brad Marchand had two assists in the game bringing his career point total to 892, just six points behind Rick Middleton for fifth in Bruins all-time history.

— The Bruins return home for a rematch with the Devils on Saturday night. Boston lost the first meeting with New Jersey in overtime on Dec. 13. Puck drop from TD Garden is scheduled for 7 p.m. ET, and you can catch the game, plus an hour of pregame coverage, on NESN.