Bruins Notes: Jim Montgomery Deemed Gutsy Comeback Win ‘Biggest’ Of Year

The Boston Bruins battled back all three periods against the New York Islanders forcing overtime and eventually taking the two points in the shootout thriller at UBS Arena on Friday night.

After skating in a scoreless opening period, the Islanders finally got the puck past Linus Ullmark at 1:42 of the second period and added a second before the Bruins solved Ilya Sorokin to cut the lead in half.

On the penalty kill, Islanders right wing Simon Holmstrom thought he had Ullmark beat while he was lying on the ice, but the Bruins netminder stuck his left leg out and stopped the puck with the toe of his skate.

The Bruins skated up ice and knocked in their first of the night, on the power play.

“We don’t get any points if we don’t have the goaltending we have,” Jim Montgomery said, per NESN’s postgame coverage. “That’s a huge part of our game and we know that. We said it all year, it’s the strength of our team, but it allows our team to find our game and give us the opportunity to win.

The Bruins tied the game only to have the Islanders take the lead back in the beginning minutes of the third period. The two clubs would each pot two goals a piece in the final frame and head to overtime. Boston started the extra period short-handed when David Pastrnak was called for tripping late in the third.

Boston was able to hold the Islanders off the board and on goals by Charlie Coyle and Pastrnak, the Bruins skated away with the win in the shootout.

“It felt like we were going to just keep pushing,” Montgomery added. “It felt like we were going to push right to the end. We didn’t know if we were going to be able to tie it up or not. To me, that’s the biggest win of the year just because of the attitude on the bench. First time where I felt there was energy, emotion, and everybody believed.”

Pastrnak echoed Montgomery’s thoughts on the win.

“Definitely a confidence booster,” Pastrnak explained, per NESN. “For us to come back multiple times and amazing job by Linus to keep us in the game early on.”

Here are more notes from Friday’s Bruins-Islanders game:

— Brad Marchand earned his 888th career point when he assisted on Morgan Geekie’s goal in the second period. With the assist, Marchand tied Bobby Orr for sixth all-time in Bruins history.

— Mason Lohrei scored his second goal of the season when he collected the loose puck from below the goal line and tossed it toward the net. The puck batted off Sorokin and into the back of the net to knot the game at four.

“Honestly, no, I didn’t see it go in,” Lohrei told reporters, per NESN. “I just saw (Brad Marchand) in front start celebrating.”

The rookie defenseman said he saw Pastrnak out in front of the net and was trying to feed him the puck and it went in instead.

— Ullmark made 33 saves in the Bruins win, including four in the overtime. He stopped Bo Horvat and Mathew Barzal in the shootout to earn his 10th win of the season.

— The Bruins get right back to work when they host the New York Rangers in the second half of the back-to-back. Puck drop from TD Garden is slated for 7 p.m. ET on Saturday, and you can catch all the action on NESN, plus an hour of pregame coverage.