Recap: Bruins ride hot start to a 5-2 win over Tampa

No Charlie McAvoy? No problem for the Bruins, as they jumped out to a 4-0 lead before eventually beating the Lightning 5-2 in Tampa.

To the highlights!

Andrei Vasilevskiy probably would like to have this one back, as a David Pastrnak toss from up top makes it 1-0 Bruins.

What’s better than one goal? Two goals! Pastrnak helps himself to seconds to make it 2-0 Bruins.

Brad Marchand decided he wanted to get in on the scoring fun, deflecting a shot past Vasilevskiy to make it 3-0 Bruins.

Anton Blidh caps a great shift by his Swedish counterpart Oskar Steen to make it 4-0 Bruins.

Tampa would score twice in the third, but the Bruins would seal it with an empty-netter from Marchand.

After the goal, Marchand had a message for Pat Maroon, who was doing a lot of talking all night.

And that’s it! An impressive 5-2 W for the good guys.

Game notes

• Well then. I know there are many optimists among us, but “Bruins jump out to a 4-0 lead” was probably a little too optimistic. A great overall effort from the Bruins.
• Marchand mentioned after the game that he didn’t think Tampa had their best game tonight, which is fair — but it’s also fair to wonder how much the Bruins’ effort had to do with keeping Tampa bottled up.
• It’s like a broken record at this point, but I don’t see how you can take Steen out of the lineup. Good things happen when he’s on the ice.
• A good sign for the B’s as Pastrnak scores twice tonight — maybe that hot streak is coming.
• While he didn’t log high-end minutes, it was a good game tonight for Urho Vaakanainen, who drew into the top pairing in McAvoy’s absence.
• The Bruins’ PK deserves a lot of credit in this one, as their efforts included a kill of a lengthy 5-on-3 and a late-third kill that included a decent stretch of 6-on-4 play.
• In case you needed an additional cherry on top of your Saturday night, the Leafs blew a 4-1 lead in Colorado and lost 5-4 in overtime. Say, that sounds familiar...

Back at it in Washington on Monday!