Bruins Prevail in Special Teams Battle Against Nashville

BOSTON – Eleven penalties, 24 minutes.

That was the story for the Boston Bruins as they eked past the Nashville Predators with a 3-2 win on Saturday night at TD Garden. Nashville’s Colton Sissons and Boston’s James van Riemsdyk each scored twice, and David Pastrnak’s penalty shot made the difference.

Another big difference was how each team’s goals came about. Both sides committed a near-equal amount of penalties, and if you count Alexandre Carrier’s stick hold on Pastrnak that led to the penalty shot, there were six apiece.

The Bruins scored on three of their six opportunities; the Predators failed to capitalize on any, despite putting 13 shots on goal while on the man advantage.

“I think both sides of the special teams left wanting more tonight,” Sissons said. “Definitely a lot of opportunities on the power play, but we got to do our job on the penalty kill and it’s not quite good enough.”

The complete opposite was true for Boston, as James van Riemsdyk displayed why Boston signed him when free agency opened on July 1. Both goals came from his net front position on the power play.

“He allows you to make a lot more plays low just because of his ability to tip pucks, everybody sees, I mean that second tip, second goal, was incredible,” Bruins coach Jim Montgomery said. “But the plays that we go down low, he has the poise. He makes really good decisions and they have to be split second decisions.”

The first saw him bounce a shot off Predators defenseman Dante Fabbro’s leg from behind the goal line, and he tipped McAvoy’s point shot on the second, which proved to be the winner.

“I thought we moved the puck around pretty well, and definitely the guys made some good plays to just get pucks to the net,” van Riemsdyk said. “And we kept it simple and tried to get some traffic, get pucks down there and obviously we got rewarded.”

While the power play clicking was important, it was the penalty kill that locked down Nashville.

Brandon Carlo logged 7:21 short-handed minutes while Derek Forbort had 6:10. The penalty kill was tested most in the second period, when Nashville had 7:50 of power play time after a slew of Bruins penalties, including a Jakub Lauko double minor.

“Our fans are so knowledgeable that they’re recognizing the great effort of blocked shots and great saves that our number one penalty killer Swayman was making,” Montgomery said. “Then there’s the sacrifice by the defensemen and the forwards working together, and I thought at the end of one of them there was a tremendous ovation. You could tell it elevated our bench. “

With all that time, Nashville mustered just six shots on goal, and all were stopped by Jeremy Swayman, who made 33 saves.

Well, almost all of them. A puck squirted through and lay vulnerable on the goal line before Forbort swiped it away. Both Kevin Shattenkirk and Matt Poitras made similar plays on the goal line to bail out Swayman and ultimately hang on for the win.

“[They meant] everything, and that’s why we got that win,” Swayman said. “It’s special to see guys stick to a game plan and not get down on themselves when we’re getting penalty after penalty. I think the morale was great.”

It got even better with Pastrnak’s penalty shot. In a game where he was limited to just 17:26 minutes due to all the short-handed situations, Pastrnak still found a way to make an impact.

He snaked his way into the offensive zone on the penalty shot, dragging the puck behind him before suddenly snapping the puck over Nashville goalie Juuse Saros’ glove.

“I tried [that shot] in preseason actually,” Pastrnak said. “Hit the logo, right in the middle of the goalie, so I didn’t have much confidence today going into it, but it worked out.”

Most games won’t play out the way Saturday’s did with all the penalties, but seeing success on both sides of the special teams this early in the season was a welcome sign for Montgomery.

“I thought the power play had a shot first attitude and we had real good presence at the net front. I also thought the puck movement was really good,” Montgomery said.