Hall scores two goals, Bruins shut out Avalanche

DENVER -- Taylor Hall had two goals and an assist, and Linus Ullmark made 23 saves for the Boston Bruins in a 4-0 win against the Colorado Avalanche at Ball Arena on Wednesday.

Trent Frederic had a goal and an assist, and Charlie Coyle had two assists for the Bruins (21-3-1), who are 11-1-1 in their past 13 games, including a 5-1 win against the Avalanche on Saturday. Boston lost 4-3 in a shootout to the Vegas Golden Knights on Monday.
"Just the response we had after losing the game and ending our [winning] streak at home, we come back and get on the road, and it was a great start to our road trip," Bruins coach Jim Montgomery said. "We made some big blocks. I thought Brandon Carlo was outstanding on the penalty kill and made some really smart offensive zone plays too."

Alexandar Georgiev made 33 saves for the Avalanche (13-10-1), who have lost four of five. They are without their leading scorer, center Nathan MacKinnon, who sustained an upper-body injury Monday and
will miss four weeks
.
"It's not always going to be easy. It's a hard game," Colorado coach Jared Bednar said. "We're going to take it. We're going to teach it. I'm going to expect, if this group stays the exact same moving forward for the next one game, two games, five games, I expect us to be better next game, because we're going to show some stuff.
"They're going to learn as a group what it takes to be able to play in this league, what it takes to be able to have success in this league, and I'll expect a lot from our veteran guys, that they step up their game and continue to play hard and do all the things."
David Pastrnak made it 1-0 at 3:49 of the second period when he one-timed a David Krejci backhand pass from the right face-off circle.
"It's not easy coming to the altitude and playing, so I don't think any one of us expected to have a rocking start," Hall said. "But we found our game as the period went on, and we found our legs, so it was really good."

Hall made it 2-0 at 9:50 after Coyle made a move around a sprawling Samuel Girard and fed him a cross-crease pass for a tap-in.
"They cough it up, and [Frederic] makes a great play to me to kind of spring [me], and 'Hallsy's' in a good spot and I just tried to make a play around [Girard]," Coyle said. "It's kind of like when you make that move, everyone knows that pass is coming, right? It's a hard finish, but it's good to be hard on that stick and then get it up like that. That's impressive."
Frederic pushed the lead to 3-0 at 6:24 of the third period with a one-timer from above the circles. He has six points (three goals, three assists) in his past five games.
"He's gotten better and better, and I think his confidence has grown. I think what we're seeing now is him getting close to his ceiling," Montgomery said of Frederic. "The other thing is, I didn't know he had a one-timer. Now we're seeing it all the time."

Hall scored on a breakaway at 9:42 for the 4-0 final, his fifth goal in the past four games.
"I wouldn't say it was cheating, but I saw Jake DeBrusk
was minus-2 in 16:07 in his first game since Oct. 17, and forward
Sampo Ranta
had one shot and two hits in 11:50 in his first game since Nov. 26. Each was recalled from Colorado on Wednesday.