Palmieri scores first two for Devils in win against Bruins

BOSTON-- Kyle Palmieri scored his first two goals of the season, and the New Jersey Devils won a third straight game, 3-2 against the Boston Bruins at TD Garden on Thursday.

Mackenzie Blackwood made 25 saves for the Devils (6-3-2), who have a four-game point streak.
New Jersey has won twice since returning from 15 days off because of a pause to comply with NHL COVID-19 protocols. They won 5-2 at the New York Rangers on Tuesday.
"Obviously I think coming out of the break, it's a tough situation for our team to be in, but I really loved [coach Lindy Ruff's] quote the other day about finding reasons to win," Palmieri said. "So two games on the road, two big wins, and that's a good sign of something special here."

Jaroslav Halak made 23 saves for the Bruins (10-3-2), who have lost their past two games after winning five straight.
"I think it was our inability to win 1-on-1 battles, to defend areas of the ice, to give them access to our zone, to not keep forecheck situations alive or even create them," Boston coach Bruce Cassidy said. "I just thought they were winning the races, the 1-on-1 battles. We just didn't want to do what it took to sort of get pucks back and win pucks and hang on to pucks. And as a result, they came at us and were the better team and looked better."
Boston next plays in the Honda NHL Outdoors Sunday game against the Philadelphia Flyers at Lake Tahoe, Nevada.
Palmieri gave the Devils a 1-0 lead at 1:34 of the second period with an assist from Jack Hughes, and made it 2-0 with a shorthanded goal on a breakaway at 10:39.
They were his first goals since March 7, 2019.
"It's nice to kind of get the monkey off your back there," the forward said. "Jack made a great play, and it's just nice to contribute in that way."

Jake DeBrusk got Boston within 2-1 at 12:36 of the second period. It was his first goal in 10 games this season.
"Yeah, it was nice to score," DeBrusk said. "Obviously you'd like to do it in a win, but I feel like I was in one of those tough games. I think that I was part of the compete factor, I was trying to get on pucks, trying to get there, but I just felt like I was losing a lot of battles."
Pavel Zacha made it 3-1 at 15:37 with a fancy move to execute a give-and-go with Andreas Johnsson.
"It was good. I knew we were 4-on-4, so I had a little more space in the offensive zone and I saw it was open behind me, so I tried to do the move, the spin-o-rama there," Zacha said. "And then I made a play to Johansson, which he found me right back, which was a perfect play, and then a kind of [an] empty net."

David Pastrnak's 6-on-4 goal from the right point with 1:06 left made it 3-2.
The Devils then survived another minute of 6-on-5 play by the Bruins, and Blackwood saved a final shot by Pastrnak in the closing seconds.
"The guys played really good and tried to play fast, play hard," Blackwood said. "Really defensive-minded and took their opportunities when they were there, so they let me see the first shot and kept the secondary stuff to a minimum, and it was a great game all around by everyone."
NOTES: Bruins center David Krejci left the game in the second period because of a lower-body injury. There was no update on his status. ... It was the second shorthanded goal by Palmieri in his 571 NHL games (also Jan. 31, 2017 at the Detroit Red Wings). ... The start time for the outdoor game Sunday was changed to 2 p.m. ET.