Bruins 6, Sharks 3: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Bears get quota, first win

The Bruins beat the Sharks 6-3 in glorious form tonight. Their power play looked fantastic, their sh% is going up....everything’s coming up bears tonight.

Let’s look at some interactives.

52 seconds into Bruce Cassidy’s first game as head coach of the Bruins, David Backes scored his 12th goal of the season:

Very nice. The assists went to Torey Krug and David Krejci; Krug now has five points in his last six games, and Krejci has four points in his last four.

The Sharks tied it up almost exactly seven minutes later when Joe Thornton scored his first goal of the season against a real goalie (his first three goals were all ENGs.)

Patrice Bergeron struck back with about four minutes to go in the first. Carlo fumbled the puck at the point, shot it, and Backes tipped it perfectly for Bergeron to slam it home:

And they weren’t done there. The Sharks took a too-much-man penalty with three minutes left in the period, and David Pastrnak capitalized on it:

A good first period. David Pastrnak even almost fell down in the goal celebration hug. What a good dude.

The second didn’t start as ideally, with the Sharks bringing it to within one a minute in. Justin Braun scored his 100th NHL point with a goal assisted by Logan Couture and Patrick Marleau.

Tim Schaller got his seventh of the season 12 minutes later though, assisted by linemates Riley Nash and Dominic Moore:

And Pasta buried another one with a minute to go in the second, assisted by Marchand and Bergeron. The perfect duo of assists.

The third period was largely quiet until towards the end, when an Adam McQuaid penalty lead to a Timo Meier goal with four minutes left in the game. However, Brad Marchand sent home an empty net goal for the quota.

It was a good start to the Bruce Cassidy era.