Marchand, Bruins defeat Sabres, extend point streak to six

BOSTON -- Brad Marchand scored two goals, and the Boston Bruins extended their point streak to six games with their second straight win, 3-2 against the Buffalo Sabres at TD Garden on Thursday.

David Pastrnak became the first player in the NHL to score 20 goals this season, and Tuukka Rask made 36 saves for Boston (14-3-5), which is 3-0-3 in its past six. The Bruins ended a three-game home winless streak (0-0-3) and are the only team in the League without a regulation loss at home this season (8-0-4).
The Bruins won despite getting outshot 17-4 in the first period and 38-27 for the game.
WATCH: [All Sabres vs. Bruins highlights]
"Yeah, opportunistic, but a win's a win," Marchand said. "You can sit there and complain about it, but at the end of the day, all that matters is you get the points. The regular season is long, and you're not going to play your best every night. You've got to be able to win games when you're not playing your A-game. It can be opportunistic, it can be luck, but we won."
Linus Ullmark made 24 saves for the Sabres (10-9-3), who lost their third straight game and are 1-7-2 in their past 10.
The Sabres had the first 14 shots, including one from Rasmus Ristolainen that gave them a 1-0 lead on the power play at 5:25 of the first period when he got to the rebound of a Jack Eichel shot.

"It's really painful right now," Buffalo coach Ralph Krueger said, "to digest a game where, in Boston, against for me the best team in the League at the moment, we played as good a first period as we could play, and dominated in every, every area of the game except for the score. You know coming in out of that period 1-1, the guys deserved more from that, and I thought they stuck with it and never gave up and kept playing well.
"Boston raised their game a touch, but we still dominated."
Marchand tied it 1-1 by tipping a Zdeno Chara shot at 13:52.
"Just kind of shows how bad we were playing in that first period, so we're lucky to get out tied after the first and not [be] behind by five," Marchand said. "So good thing we had [Rask] there [in] that first period."
Marchand made it 2-1 on the power play at 14:45 of the second period, scoring on the rebound of a Matt Grzelcyk shot from the point.

Pastrnak's power-play goal on a rebound of a Danton Heinen shot at 1:56 of the third period made it 3-1.
Rask lost his stick during a scramble in front of the net but made a diving save with his blocker to stop Evan Rodrigues at 4:47 and preserve the two-goal lead.
"I don't make highlights too often like that because you know I try to be in position to make saves," Rask said. "… It's fun to make a save like that. But yeah, it's just one those instinct saves that I can't [explain], you're tracking it and then you see that you've got to do something, and then it hits you."

Brandon Montour cut it to 3-2 at 12:58 with a slap shot from the left point.
"We played a little bit better, but in the end, it's another loss. ... We have to start winning some hockey games," Montour said.

They said it

"Arguably the save of the year. You just tip your hat and move on. But yeah, that was something else." -- Sabres forward Evan Rodrigues on being stopped with a diving save by Bruins goalie Tuukka Rask
"We didn't play our game tonight. We won with our B-game, and we won with goaltending, timely scoring on special teams, on the power play. There's a lot of areas of our game that weren't good enough tonight and we got away with it." -- Bruins coach Bruce Cassidy

Need to know

Boston center Patrice Bergeron had an assist in his return from missing two games with a lower-body injury. ... The Bruins' four shots in the first period matched their season-low for a period this season; they had four in the third at the Detroit Red Wings on Nov. 8. … Pastrnak (22 games) has the fastest 20 goals by a Boston player since Cam Neely did it in 19 games in 1993-94. ... Before Ristolainen's goal, the Sabres were 0-for-22 on the power play dating to Oct. 28 at the Arizona Coyotes.

What's next

Sabres: At the Florida Panthers on Sunday (5 p.m. ET; ESPN+, TVAS, FS-F, MSG-B, NHL.TV)
Bruins: Host the Minnesota Wild on Saturday (7 p.m. ET; NESN, FS-N, NHL.TV)