Rask, Bruins shut out Blues, extend point streak to six

BOSTON --Tuukka Rask made 26 saves for the Boston Bruins in a 3-0 win against the St. Louis Blues at TD Garden on Saturday in the first game between the teams since the 2019 Stanley Cup Final.

David Pastrnak, Anders Bjork and Brandon Carlo scored for Boston (7-1-2), which extended its point streak to six games (4-0-2). It was Rask's second shutout of the season.
St. Louis won the Cup Final last season in seven games, including a 4-1 win at Boston in Game 7, but the Bruins said they didn't feel they gained any measure of revenge.
WATCH: [All Blues vs. Bruins highlights]
"I was saying that unless they brought the Cup to this game, I don't think it has anything to do with it," Rask said. "Different year, different teams, so … but you know, two good teams, so it was a great Saturday night game."
Jordan Binnington made 21 saves for St. Louis (5-3-3), which won its previous two games. The Blues played without injured forward Vladimir Tarasenko (upper body), who isn't on their two-game road trip.

"I mean, we can play better," St. Louis coach Craig Berube said. "Our second period was not very good; just a little bit sloppy with the puck and stuff. But I thought we had a good first period and I thought we had a good third period."
Pastrnak scored for a fifth straight game and gave the Bruins a 1-0 lead with a power-play goal at 14:59 of the first period on one-timer from the left face-off circle. The goal extended Pastrnak's point streak to eight games (11 goals, seven assists).

"I think if you can force them to chase the game a little bit, you're much better off," Bruins coach Bruce Cassidy said. "And you know, that's a general statement that most teams will play better with the lead, but I think there are some in this league that are really good with the lead. I think we're one of them, and I think St. Louis is that type of team that's just built to play better with the lead than to have to come from behind."
Bjork one-timed Matt Grzelcyk's pass at the right circle to make it 2-0 at 9:31 of the second.
"The play started with [Connor Clifton] making a great rim, taking a hit from two of their forecheckers, then I think it was [Danton Heinen] on the wall kind of bumped it up," Grzelcyk said. "I just saw a lot of room to kind of jump in the play, and I knew when [Bjork] passed it to me he would be ready for the one-timer back. But yeah, it's been fun to watch him."

Carlo scored an empty-net goal at 19:11 of the third period for the 3-0 final.
"Bad puck placement tonight," Blues forward Oskar Sundqvist said. "Kind of didn't get a chance to get in on our forecheck and what we're good at. And I think when we got it, we didn't go low to high enough and let our D-men shoot it. But one of those games where we just have to forget, and luckily there's another game tomorrow."

They said it

"We had power plays, and they won the special teams battle. You look at the box score at every game or at the end of games, and whoever wins the special teams battle more times than not is going to come out on top. It was just tough; I don't think we played well enough there in the second [period] to kind of keep momentum. Our first wasn't too bad, but the second was tough for us." -- Blues defenseman Justin Faulk
"Yeah, I think we defended in a way that they didn't have a whole lot, you know? There was a couple times they hit a seam, but we either blocked it or [they] missed the net, and then box-outs were great. So when you take other teams' time and space away and don't give them too much options, it helps everybody." -- Bruins goalie Tuukka Rask

Need to know

The Blues had won three straight games at TD Garden (Games 2, 5 and 7 of the Stanley Cup Final). … Bruins forward Brad Marchand had an assist on Pastrnak's goal to extend his point streak to nine games (five goals, 10 assists). … Bjork's goal was his first in 17 NHL games dating to Oct. 13, 2008. He played his second NHL game of this season. … Bruins defenseman Zdeno Chara tied Phil Housley for 22nd on the NHL all-time games played list (1,495).

What's next

Blues: At the Detroit Red Wings on Sunday (5 p.m. ET; ESPN+, FS-D, FS-MW, NHL.TV)
Bruins: At the New York Rangers on Sunday (7 p.m. ET; NHLN, MSG, NESN, NHL.TV)