Three players scored and Jeremy Swayman pitched a 23-save shutout to lead the Boston Bruins to a 3-0 win over the host Chicago Blackhawks on Tuesday night.
Pavel Zacha, Matthew Poitras and Trent Frederic all lit the lamp for Boston, which finished off a four-game road trip and improved to 6-0-0 for only the second time in franchise history. The Bruins are in their 100th season.
The shutout was the 10th of Swayman’s career in only 91 regular-season games.
All 18 Boston skaters were credited with at least one of the Bruins’ season-high 43 shots on goal. Eighteen came in the second period.
Zacha’s first goal of the season at 3:50 of the second period stood as the game-winner. The last two Boston goals came within a 56-second span early in the third.
A 19-year-old rookie, Poitras has now scored three times over his past two games.
Chicago did not register double-digit shots in any frame, finishing the game with only 23 as a team.
Petr Mrazek stopped 40 shots for the Blackhawks, who have been shut out twice during their current three-game skid.
The hosts looked to take a 1-0 lead at 12:54 of the first before a coach’s challenge for offsides wiped away star rookie Connor Bedard’s third NHL goal — an open one-timer off Charlie Coyle’s turnover.
The Bruins took advantage of the momentum shift and went ahead early in the middle period.
Zacha’s tip-in score off a Kevin Shattenkirk point shot highlighted Boston’s dominant run of 14 consecutive shots on net that lasted over nine minutes.
In the third, Poitras doubled the Bruins’ lead at 4:06 when he poked a puck free in his own zone and shot home a breakaway goal as he closed in on Mrazek.
The line of James van Riemsdyk, Coyle and Frederic teamed up to produce the second of Boston’s quick-fire goals. After Coyle’s shot from the left wing, van Riemsdyk corralled the puck and fed a backhand pass to Frederic to finish at the opposite post.
Bruins forward Jakub Lauko was cut near the eye by a skate late in the third. Boston coach Jim Montgomery said Lauko ended up being OK, but he did need stitches next to his eye.
–Field Level Media
