Third Line, Pastrnak Lift Bruins Past Winnipeg

BOSTON - David Pastrnak's torrid stretch continued as he delivered the winner with a one-time blast on the power play early in the third period - his 11th goal of the month - to lift the Bruins past the Winnipeg Jets, 3-2, on Saturday afternoon at TD Garden. The victory marked Boston's 10th in 12 games to start January.
"He's on net," Bruce Cassidy said of Pastnak's recent run. "Like that shot today, he was off net with that earlier in the year - and in fairness to him, he hit crossbars and posts. Now it's going in…and when you start scoring, I think goal scorers start feeling it a little better. They're a little cleaner, their hands are lighter, all of those things come together for you. He's had chemistry with [Taylor] Hall."
Here's some other news and notes from the B's victory over the Jets:

Third Line Steps Up

The Bruins' other two goals on Saturday afternoon came from the third line with Charlie Coyle and Oskar Steen notching one apiece. Steen's tally tied the game, 1-1, with 8:23 left in the first period after he collected a Coyle attempt at the top of the crease and put it past Winnipeg goalie Connor Hellebuyck. Coyle knotted things, 2-2, at 2:31 of the second when he tipped home a Derek Forbort shot from the point.
"If you want to be a good team, you need contributions from everyone, and tonight, they did their job and then some offensively," said Cassidy. "I liked all three. Big part of our win, and that's always good for team building and for success when different lines contribute. They were certainly, I would say, our best tonight."
Steen picked up his second career goal - this one far more traditional than his first - after sitting out Thursday's win over Washington as a healthy scratch. With Anton Blidh out with an upper-body injury, the winger was given an opportunity to re-enter the lineup.
"Two schools of thought with that," said Cassidy. "We've done that in the past with guys, it hasn't worked out well, and other guys have taken it well. He's not the first, won't be the last. There's situations where you get 13 healthy forwards that someone has to sit, and in this particular case, it was him. Wasn't because of necessarily one bad game. It was a situation where, 'Hey, go up, watch a game. We're going to get you back in there was the plan.'
"Now we have a couple of injuries that made that a little bit easier, but it wasn't going to be long-term. We liked the way he was playing. It's how you respond a lot of the times in those situations. He's responded very well with effort today, gets rewarded with a goal."
DeBrusk, meanwhile, collected a secondary helper on Steen's marker, giving him three points (goal, two assists) in the last two games.
"He has his legs which helps because that is his greatest attribute," said Cassidy. "He can outskate a lot of people out there, and when he is on top of people, it makes a difference; and when he gets pucks in loose ice, he backs people off and challenges people and puts people under duress. That's what we like about Jake. Compete on the puck. We've said that from Day 1. We want that every night; we're getting it."

Marchand Suits Up

Brad Marchand admits that, like everyone else, he didn't expect to be on the ice on Saturday afternoon after leaving Thursday's win over Washington with an upper-body injury following a nasty hit from behind from the Capitals' Garnet Hathaway.
But thanks to the work of the Bruins' medical staff, Marchand began to feel better on Friday night and after going for a skate on Saturday morning, he decided he was in good enough shape to give it a go.
"It's been a little bit of a whirlwind…I didn't expect to play today either," admitted Marchand. "I've just got to give our training staff a ton of credit. They threw everything at it and we really focused on trying to calm it down, and [Friday] night I started to feel OK. I really wasn't sure this morning, but I jumped on the ice and felt OK. It's hard to sit out a game. It's gonna take a lot to sit out.
"If you feel like you can play through it, it's always been part of the culture in this organization is if you feel you can play, you've got to battle through it. You almost feel like you're letting the guys down if you sit out. It's a tough decision. The last thing you want to do is put the team at a disadvantage if I did get in and had to come out at some point in the game.
"I'm just more thankful that nothing bad happened tonight, and we had a big win. It's great to be part of it. It's a treat to be part of this league and to play every night, and you don't want to ever miss a game."

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