BOSTON – It was more of a grinding effort than the feel-good story from Bruce Cassidy’s first win with the Bruins, but the B’s made it two in a row under the new coach by taking a tight 4-3 victory over the Vancouver Canucks at TD Garden on Saturday afternoon.
David Pastrnak scored on a nifty cross-ice stretch pass from David Krejci, when he put Chris Tanev with the D-zone torture chamber with a spin move, and then flipped the puck past Ryan Miller for his team-leading 25th goal of the season. The late third-period goal staked the B’s to a lead and they were able to hang on and lock things down to earn the regulation win behind a 29-save winning effort from Anton Khudobin.
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The Bruins initially trailed when Bo Horvat took advantage of a Pastrnak turnover going low-to-high with a pass in the offensive zone and scored a rebound goal in transition after the B’s winger lost the puck. The B’s fought back, however, with a couple of goals in the first period, as Kevan Miller joined the rush and snapped home a cross-ice pass from Ryan Spooner, and Frank Vatrano added a power-play goal on a sweet playmaking dish from David Krejci.
The Canucks tied it up in back-breaking fashion in the second period with 0.6 seconds remaining when Vancouver’s infamous biting machine, Alex Burrows, squeezed a puck through Khudobin’s equipment on the short side. The Bruins bounced back in the third with another goal from their D-men as Colin Miller smoked a one-time bazooka blast off a drop-pass from Jimmy Hayes, and led for most of the third period.
But the Canucks again fought back and got a power play goal from Markus Granlund, with Tim Schaller in the penalty box, to tie things up late in the third period and set up Pastrnak’s heroics that led Boston to their two points.