Bruins Notes: Prospect Battling For Roster Spot Delivers In Preseason Win

Bruins head coach Jim Montgomery sent a clear message to Fabian Lysell after the forward's lackluster performance in Boston's first preseason tilt on Sunday night. Lysell responded with a much better showing in the Bruins' 4-2 win over the Washington Capitals on Tuesday night at TD Garden.

"I thought Lysell had a real good game," Montgomery told Andy Brickley on NESN's postgame coverage. "I thought he was strong on pucks. I thought he had a lot of opportunities, a lot of shot attempts."

In 16:51 minutes of ice time, Lysell tallied a power play goal and registered three takeaways across 20 shifts including more than four minutes of power play time. Lysell admitted he felt better in the contest with the Capitals than he had during the preseason opener against the New York Rangers.

"(The) first game, is always, the timing, everything is kind of off," Lysell told NESN's Judd Sirott on postgame coverage. "It's nice to get back out there, quick turnaround. I felt like everything just more smoothly today and we played a bit of a team game."

Lysell added he got some encouragement from Providence Bruins coach Ryan Mougenel on Monday.

"We had a nice chat," Lysell said. "He knows me pretty well. So just getting back to simple things and trusting your game. I felt better today."

The Bruins got their first look at goaltender Joonas Korpisalo between the pipes. Korpisalo played a period and a half in net, stopping all seven shots he faced.

"Pretty good, didn't have much to do there," Korpisalo told reporters, as seen on NESN's postgame coverage. "Every shot I got, I felt pretty comfortable. Guys did a great job in front of me. Let me see the pucks, no second chances, so it felt pretty good.

"... We'll take the good and the bad things from this and we move on. There's a lot of games left. ... Even though it was half a game, you want to do your best there and give a good impression and just be yourself. And I felt pretty good."

Here are more notes from Tuesday's Bruins-Capitals preseason game:

-- Georgii Merkulov played in his second preseason game. He had the primary assist on Justin Brazeau's third-period goal to give the Bruins a 4-1 lead.

"I thought Merkulov did a lot of good things," Montgomery said. "I think he had one or two assists, that escapes me right now, but he's involved. He wants the puck, he made a great play on the Brazeau goal."

-- The Bruins were outshot by the Capitals 22-19 in the contest, but Boston edged out Washington at the face-off dot. The Black and Gold won 53.2% of the faceoffs taken in the win.

-- Boston's penalty kill was a perfect 3-for-3 and special teams went 1-for-4 on the power play.

-- The Bruins had 10 players register a point in the win. Riley Tufte and Patrick Brown scored Boston's two other goals. Jordan Oesterle, Michael Callahan, Brett Harrison, Ian Mitchell and Tyler Johnson each tallied an assist.

-- The Black and Gold will practice at Warrior Ice Arena on Wednesday before traveling to the Big Apple to take on the New York Rangers at Madison Square Garden on Thursday night.