BOSTON – It was a strange game with multiple delays, a goalie injury and a linesman that also went down leaving both teams with three on-ice officials for much of the game.
It also featured the Bruins fighting from behind against the New Jersey Devils a couple of times before finally collecting a solid 3-2 win at TD Garden that extended their point streak to 17 games.
The Bruins were outshot by a 20-margin in the first period, but watched Tuukka Rask turn away all 20 of the shots that he faced behind a B’s club that clearly wasn’t starting on time.
The Devils actually took control of the game in the second period as Miles Wood tipped a Will Butcher shot past Rask while camped out all alone in front of the net. The Bruins stormed back and tied it up five minutes later on a Riley Nash shot that bounced and pin-balled it’s way over Cory Schneider from a bad angle.
New Jersey once again jumped on top as a Torey Krug point blast caught Patrice Bergeron squarely in the chest at the offensive zone, and Jersey was able to turn that into an odd-man rush and a Damon Severson strike at the other end.
After that, however, it was all Bruins. They limited the Devils to just seven shots in the middle 20 minutes, and scored a pair of unanswered goals to take control of the game sandwiched around a 13-minute delay after a major time clock snafu. Patrice Bergeron scored on a power play strike from the slot during a 5-on-3 advantage to tie things up, and after the delay Brad Marchand scored on a breakaway with under a minute to go in the period.
The rest was up to Rask, who shut down Severson on a breakaway attempt in the third period and stopped 37 shots in all in one of his best performances of the season.
