Bruins Fall to Flames in Return from Break

BOSTON – Andrei Kuzmenko scored in his debut for the Calgary Flames, who defeated the Boston Bruins 4-1 at TD Garden on Tuesday.

Jonathan Huberdeau had a goal and two assists, Nazem Kadri had three assists and Jacob Markstrom made 21 saves for Calgary (23-22-5).

Pavel Zacha scored, and Jeremy Swayman made 25 saves for Boston (31-10-9), which had won seven of its previous eight games (7-1-0).

“I just didn’t think we were good,” Bruins coach Jim Montgomery said. “Our effort was poor. Obviously as a staff, you look inward and you look at our preparation. You always think, as a coach, your preparation was good, but obviously, it wasn’t good enough. A lot of mental mistakes, a lot of physical mistakes, and that’s the lack of real good preparation. Individually and collectively.”

Kuzmenko gave the Flames a 1-0 lead with a power-play goal at 4:20 of the first period, finishing off Huberdeau’s cross-ice pass. The goal came just after Markstrom stopped Bruins forward Charlie Coyle on a short-handed breakaway.

“To me, that’s a turning point, for sure,” Calgary coach Ryan Huska said. “And then our power play getting two [goals]. … That’s a real positive for us because even the one we didn’t score at the end of the game, it was dangerous. It looked good, and that’s something that we want to keep seeing.”

Connor Zary made it 2-0 at 13:01 of the first, driving across the crease and scoring on the backhand around Swayman.

Zacha cut it to 2-1 with a 5-on-3 power-play goal from the right circle at 4:14 of the third period.

“I think everyone from our team wanted to score,” Zacha said. “I think the 5-on-3, it was a momentum change, and then we took a penalty, so that kind of took it away from us right away. It’s one of those games where we just have to learn how to win those, and we’ve done it the whole season, so we have to keep working on it.”

Huberdeau stole the puck from Boston defenseman Charlie McAvoy and shot past Swayman while playing 4-on-4 to make it 3-1 at 6:23 of the third.

Noah Hanifin snuck a backhand short side on the power play at 9:44 for the 4-1 final.

NOTES: Flames forward Martin Pospisil received a five-minute major and game misconduct for cross checking Bruins captain Brad Marchand at 16:00 of the first...McAvoy received a game misconduct penalty at 16:16 of the third period...David Pastrnak’s assist on Zacha’s goal marked his 73rd point through 50 games, the most by a Bruins player through 50 games in 30 years. Adam Oates (74) and Cam Neely (73) were the last two to have that many through 50 games in 1993-94.