‘It is special’: Bruins 4th team ever to hit 60 wins
Charlie Coyle scored the game-winning shootout goal as the Bruins recovered from blowing a 3-0 lead to beat the Blues 4-3…
ST. LOUIS — Charlie Coyle scored the game-winning shootout goal as the Bruins recovered from blowing a 3-0 lead to beat the St. Louis Blues 4-3 for Boston’s 60th victory of the season.
The Bruins became just the fourth team in NHL history to win at least 60 games in a season, joining the 2018-19 Tampa Bay Lightning (62), 1995-96 Detroit Red Wings (62) and 1976-77 Montreal Canadiens (60)
“It is special,” Bruins center Brad Marchand said about reaching the milestone. “At the end of the day, I think we’ve done a really good job at kind of staying in the moment. But when the year is over and I guess the careers are all over and we kind of look back, it’s pretty special to be part of a group like this and to break records. So it is something that we try not to get caught up in.”
Linus Ullmark made 35 saves and stopped all three St. Louis shootout attempts to lead Boston to its third straight triumph.
“We wind up on top because of our great goaltender,” Boston coach Jim Montgomery said. “He was fantastic tonight. And as soon as we scored, Charlie scored, I’m like, you know what, he’s not letting one in. You could just see it through his cage.”
The Bruins now have 125 points this season and are on pace for 133 points, which would break the NHL single-season record of 132 set by the 1976-77 Canadiens. Boston has five games remaining in the regular season.
Jake DeBrusk, Tyler Bertuzzi and Oskar Steen all scored in regulation for Boston.
Jordan Kyrou scored a pair of goals, and Torey Krug also scored for St. Louis.
“It was an exciting game, back-and-forth game,” Kyrou said. “It felt like a playoff game, so it’s all good.”
Jordan Binnington made 28 saves for St. Louis, which lost its second game in a row and was officially eliminated from the postseason for the first time since 2018.
“It’s very disappointing,” Blues coach Craig Berube said. “This organization and what’s expected of everybody, we’re not very happy, for sure.”
Boston’s Dmitry Orlov appeared to have scored the game winner 2:24 into overtime, but after a quick review, the goal was overturned as David Pastrnak was offside entering the St. Louis zone.
Kyrou scored his second goal of the game and team-leading 36th of the season with 25 seconds remaining in regulation after Binnington was pulled for an extra attacker to tie the game 3-all.
“We made some mistakes that we can’t make,” Montgomery said. “So it’s good learning. You’re still going to get mentally fatigued in the playoffs, and we can’t make the mistakes we made and give them odd man rushes or really good looks and ended up in the back of our net.”
Krug buried a rebound from Brandon Saad past Ullmark for his seventh goal of the season 9:47 into the third period to cut the Boston lead to 3-2.
Kyrou scored his first goal of the game with nine seconds remaining in the second period.
Bertuzzi scored his seventh goal of the season on a power play 7:18 into the second period, and Steen added his first goal since Jan. 22, 2002, just 44 seconds later to expand Boston’s lead to 3-0.
DeBrusk scored his 25th goal of the season when he tapped in his own rebound past Binnington 5:51 into the first period to give Boston an early 1-0 lead.
ESPN Stats & Information and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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