The teams face off for a rematch Saturday afternoon in Boston.
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ST. LOUIS — No thinking, just shooting.
That was David Pastrnak’s strategy Tuesday night.
Boston’s leading scorer capped a wild, three-goal third-period comeback as the Bruins slapped a 3-2 loss on the Blues at a deflated Enterprise Center.
Pastrnak drilled a one-timer off a Charlie McAvoy relay past Jordan Binnington with just 1:47 remaining to secure the 2 points.
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“What a crazy shift that was. There were a couple looks we had, and obviously McAvoy and Mason [Lohrei] were doing their thing and kind of buzzing around and they kind of collapsed on the puck, it bounced to Pav [Pavel Zacha], I think he kicked it to [McAvoy], and it came over to me,” said Pastrnak, before breaking into laughter. “And I just shot it as hard as I could.”
Binnington bent over as if he had squeezed it, but it was by him.
It was the game-high 10th shot of the night and team-high seventh goal of the season for Pastrnak, who led all forwards with 24:29 of ice time.
“They scored a couple of nice power-play goals in the second and we fell behind,” said coach Jim Montgomery. “But we talked about staying with it for 60 minutes and playing the right way. And even though we made a couple of mistakes in the third still — because you’re going to make mistakes, it’s a game of mistakes — we just kept battling. We kept playing the right way. We got to the goal line, and we got some greasy goals.”
The Bruins evened things with a pair of goals set up by their leaders.
First, it was Pastrnak.
The crafty winger stole the puck and blitzed into the St. Louis end. He waited patiently and then sifted a pass over to Morgan Geekie, who beat Binnington under the right pad with a one-timer at 4:53 for his first of the season.
“It’s always nice to get the first one, especially just coming back into the lineup,” said Geekie. “So, it’s good. It helps a lot. It’s good mentally.”
The Bruins came out with renewed spirit in the third and finally cracked the Binnington mystery. Meanwhile, Swayman (20 saves) was keeping the Blues from extending their lead.
“You can really build off these things,” said McAvoy. “You’ve got to do the right things moving forward. But there’s a couple times throughout a year where you win a game like this or something like this happens, you come back and find a way like we did tonight, and you can really build off those.
“So, you’ve got to earn them. And we did tonight, and we’ve got to do the right things moving forward. But this could definitely spark something.”
