Talking Points: Boston Bruins Bank ‘Big Win’ Vs. Tampa Bay

Here are the Talking Points from the Boston Bruins 5-2 win over the Tampa Bay Lightning at Amalie Arena on Saturday night.

GOLD STAR: David Pastrnak continues to look like a player that’s on the verge of a major hot streak with the Black and Gold. The Bruins right winger scored each of the first two goals for the Black and Gold to stake them out to a quick lead and finished with seven shots on net and 11 shot attempts overall in 18:39 of ice time. The two goals and plus-1 rating give No. 88 three goals in his last three games after going scoreless through the entire month of December. Perhaps best of all is that Pastrnak’s goals continue to be high-effort exercise like the goal he scored on the rebound of a Taylor Hall shot where he kicked the loose puck back to his stick for the hard-working goal.

Two goals for David Pastrnak in the first 6:10 of play.

2-0 Bruins. pic.twitter.com/4XeCVF5V98

— Conor Ryan (@ConorRyan_93) January 9, 2022

BLACK EYE: One shot on net, one hit and pretty much nothing else for Pat Maroon 14:11 of ice time where he did pretty much nothing aside from get embroiled in a chirp-fest with Brad Marchand. Maroon trotted out the tired “How many Cups do you have?” while Marchand didn’t have to say anything aside from “I own you. I [expletive] own you.” Game, set and match for Marchand after scoring a pair of goals in Saturday night’s win over Tampa Bay that included an empty netter when the Lightning were scrambling for a few quick goals at the end of regulation.

TURNING POINT: The Boston Bruins had taken a big two-goal lead to open the game in the first period, but it was the middle 20 minutes when the B’s truly pulled away from the Tampa Bay Lightning. They outshot the Bolts by a 12-7 margin and Brad Marchand jumped on the Bolts just 27 seconds into the period to build it to a three-goal lead. Anton Blidh added the insurance goal for good measure later on in the period, and it didn’t matter at all that Tampa Bay waged a pretty good battle in the third period to get Tampa Bay a little bit closer to them when the dust settled. The B’s had built up too much of a lead in the opening 20 minutes for Tampa to overcome when they finally got their bearings.

HONORABLE MENTION: Anton Blidh continues to be a positive contributor for the Black and Gold he kicked in secondary scoring with his second period goal after teaming up with Oskar Steen on the score. Blidh finished the game with three shots on net and two hits in 12:43 of ice time while in the middle of the action on the fourth line, and now has two goals and five points in 18 games along with a plus-2 rating this season. On the scoring play, Oskar Steen forced a turnover and fed a pass to Blidh entering the zone and the fourth liner did the rest firing one on the net that managed to sneak past Andrei Vasilevskiy. It took a few years but Blidh is finally beginning to repay the confidence that the Bruins organization has had in him for years while bouncing back and forth between Boston and Providence.

What a high-level skill setup by Oskar Steen here. 5 pts in 7 NHL games this season. Bruins rolling 4-0 after two periods pic.twitter.com/8bWoiJgqe4

— Joe Haggerty (@HackswithHaggs) January 9, 2022

BY THE NUMBERS: 5 – the number of points in seven games for Oskar Steen after he made a nice play setting up Anton Blidh for the Boston Bruins goal that made it a 4-0 game. Steen continues to show that he should be sticking around in Boston no matter what happens with the other forwards.

QUOTE TO NOTE: “It’s a big win for our group and it’s another game that we can build on.” –Brad Marchand, on a decisive win over the Lightning and their fourth win in five games coming out of the holiday/COVID break.