Bruins Rally Past Devils with Four-Goal Second Period

BOSTON -- The Boston Bruins scored four straight second-period goals to defeat the New Jersey Devils 5-2 at TD Garden on Saturday.

David Pastrnak and Kevin Shattenkirk each scored twice, and Linus Ullmark made 31 saves for Boston (21-7-6), which trailed 2-0 in the second period.

“I loved the response of the bench,” Bruins coach Jim Montgomery said. “We felt we were playing a good game. We felt we were playing to our identity, and we felt we were playing Bruins hockey. And that played itself out. Players were competing, I thought we were physical tonight.”

Luke Hughes made it 2-0 at 1:11 of the second period with a wrist shot from behind the left face-off circle to extend his goal streak to three games.

DeBrusk cut it to 2-1 at 5:35 of the second when Brad Marchand forced a turnover behind the Devils’ net and passed to DeBrusk, who deked to the front to snap his 11-game goal drought.

“I haven’t felt this all year, so it’s nice to kind of be back, in that sense of things,” DeBrusk said. “Obviously, it was a great play by ‘Marchy.’ … I think it was just nice having a reset, honestly, in the [holiday] break.”

Pastrnak tied it 2-2 at 12:51, poking a rebound across the line off a shot by Brandon Carlo.

“If you make mistakes, if you kind of take a gear off or whatnot, take a shift off, it usually doesn’t result in good things,” New Jersey forward Erik Haula said. “But overall, I think both teams had chances. Very unfortunate second period.”

Pastrnak gave the Bruins a 3-2 lead on the power play at 15:39, skating to the front of the net and deking around Vanecek.

“Initially, I was thinking about shooting high glove,” Pastrnak said. “But I had quick look, and I had a lot of speed, so it’s hard for the goaltender to kind of follow me all the way to the far post.”

Shattenkirk made it 4-2 at 17:14 with his 100th NHL goal and scored his second of the game at 16:49 of the third period, shooting past Vanecek’s glove for the 5-2 final.

Boston has won two in a row since the three-day holiday break from Dec. 24-26, which they entered on a four-game losing streak.

“Coming off of a big break like that, especially with how we finished going into Christmas, there could have been a lot to dwell on,” Shattenkirk said. “But everyone did a great job of resetting, and really just starting fresh and making sure that we focused on building our game, and I think that’s what these past two games have been.”

NOTES: Bruins defenseman Charlie McAvoy left the game at 16:17 of the third period with an apparent lower-body injury after colliding with Ullmark. Boston coach Jim Montgomery said McAvoy was fine, calling the injury a ‘stinger’. … Pastrnak became the fifth player to have 60 multi-goal games with the Bruins, joining Phil Esposito (104 games), Cam Neely (76 games), Johnny Bucyk (75 games) and Rick Middleton (63 games). … Bruins forward Georgii Merkulov played 15:08 in his NHL debut.