David Pastrnak scored twice in regulation to eclipse the 50-goal mark before Charlie Coyle and Jake DeBrusk tallied in the shootout, helping the Boston Bruins beat the Carolina Hurricanes 4-3 on Sunday afternoon in Raleigh, N.C.
Boston (57-11-5, 119 points) picked up its seventh straight win after Carolina (47-16-9, 103 points) scored twice in the third period to force overtime.
Jakub Lauko also scored, Charlie McAvoy logged a pair of assists and Jeremy Swayman made 34 saves for the Bruins, who tied their franchise record for single-season victories.
Swayman blanked the Canes in the shootout to pick up his fourth straight win in the matchup of the NHL’s top two teams.
Opening the scoring just 4:43 into the first period, Pastrnak became the sixth player in franchise history to reach the 50-goal mark in a single season and the third-fastest player to reach 600 NHL points in a Bruins sweater.
Harvard product Jack Drury, Brady Skjei and Sebastian Aho scored, while Brett Pesce had two assists for Carolina, which has lost two of three.
Frederik Andersen made 35 saves, including 10 in the third period and five in overtime.
In the first, McAvoy set up Pastrnak’s 50th tally with a feed through the neutral zone, sending the star winger down the slot for a breakaway goal that trickled past Andersen five-hole.
The initial assist was McAvoy’s 40th of the season.
The Hurricanes knotted the score at 1-1 at 7:44 of the second. Drury tipped Jalen Chatfield’s feed from the right side to the slot, beating Swayman while a defender was without a stick in front.
Boston’s response came quickly as it went on the power play less than a minute later and scored on Pastrnak’s one-timer at 9:12. It was his 100th career man-up goal.
Lauko cushioned the Boston lead to 3-1 at the 11:46 mark, pulling up in the right circle and snapping a shot across the grain under Andersen’s blocker.
Carolina scored twice before the four-minute mark of the third, tying the game at 3-3. At 1:37, Skjei corralled a puck that Martin Necas shot off the end wall and snapped a shot home from the left dot.
Aho crashed the net and buried a centering feed from Jordan Martinook for the tying goal at 3:44.
Forwards Patrice Bergeron (illness), Brad Marchand and defenseman Hampus Lindholm (nagging injuries) were all out of the lineup a day after Boston clinched the Atlantic Division title on Saturday.
–Field Level Media
