Two Fights, 16 Penalties and a Pastrnak Milestone in Bruins' 6-4 Win Over Sharks

TL;DR: The Boston Bruins beat the San Jose Sharks 6-4 at TD Garden on Saturday in a game that had two fights, 16 penalties and 46 penalty minutes, and still found room for history. David Pastrnak, straight out of the penalty box, tied the game at 3-3 in the third period with his 427th career goal, drawing level with Patrice Bergeron for third on the Bruins’ all-time list. James Hagens scored 40 seconds later, and Boston scored four times in the final frame to extend its point streak to eight games. Mark Kastelic and Michael Kesselring fought in the second period, and Tanner Jeannot and Zack Ostapchuk dropped the gloves early in the third.

This was not a game that settled into a rhythm so much as one that kept interrupting itself. The Bruins trailed, fought, sat in the box, scored, and fought again, and the final twenty minutes contained almost everything: a milestone, a comeback, and a second fight before the comeback had even finished.

How did the fights start?

The first one started with a hit into the boards. Mark Kastelic slammed Michael Kesselring into the wall in the second period, and Kesselring responded by dropping his gloves and going after Kastelic, NESN’s live coverage reports. The officials sorted it out as two minutes for boarding on Kastelic and two for roughing on Kesselring, plus five minutes each for fighting, keeping the game at five-on-five. The fight was not a sideshow to the scoring; it was part of a second period in which Boston’s discipline was already fraying, with the Bruins taking penalties while the Sharks kept finding power-play chances.

The second fight came early in the third, before the comeback had really begun. Tanner Jeannot planted a big hit on Zack Ostapchuk, Ostapchuk dropped his gloves, and the two went at it, NESN reports. Jeannot and Ostapchuk each received five minutes for fighting, and Elias Lindholm joined them in the box for slashing. At that point the penalty count was already climbing toward the final tally of 16 penalties and 46 penalty minutes, with Boston assessed nine penalties for 24 minutes and San Jose seven for 22.

That kind of night usually loses you a game. San Jose scored twice on the power play and added a shorthanded goal, and Dmitry Orlov’s goal at 4:03 of the third gave the Sharks their first lead of the night at 3-2. The Bruins’ penalty trouble was, as NESN put it, a defensive lapse that needed attention even in victory. The reason it did not cost them is the same reason the game is worth remembering: the player who spent part of it in the box came out of it and changed the game.

How did Pastrnak’s milestone happen?

Straight out of the penalty box, with the season’s biggest moment of timing. Pastrnak had been assessed two minutes for tripping, and just out of the box he took a pass from J.J. Peterka and fired from the right circle at 8:27 of the third to tie the game at 3-3, NESN reports. It was his seventh goal of the season, and his 427th career goal, which moved him into a tie with former captain Patrice Bergeron for third on the franchise’s all-time list.

The timing made the milestone more than a footnote. San Jose had just taken its first lead, and the Bruins were staring at the possibility that their penalty-filled night would end in a loss. Instead, Pastrnak’s goal swung the game back, and Hagens scored just 40 seconds later to put Boston ahead for good. Fraser Minten then capitalised on a power-play opportunity at the 12-minute mark, and although Will Smith cut the deficit to one shortly afterwards, Will Borgen’s empty-net goal at 19:32 closed it out.

It is worth noting what kind of milestone this is. Bergeron is not just a name on a list; he is the standard for two-way Bruins hockey over the last two decades, and tying him puts Pastrnak in company that says something about longevity as well as scoring. The next goal, whenever it comes, moves Pastrnak past Bergeron outright, and it will come with the same player still in his prime rather than at the end of a farewell tour.

Who else shaped the game?

Six different Bruins scored, which is the other half of the story. Casey Mittelstadt opened the scoring with his 100th career NHL goal in the first period, Marat Khusnutdinov added the second-period goal, and then Pastrnak, Hagens, Minten and Borgen finished the job, NESN reports. For San Jose, Michael Misa, Kiefer Sherwood, Dmitry Orlov and Will Smith scored, with Sherwood’s shorthanded goal and Orlov’s power-play goal showing how the Sharks kept punishing Boston’s penalties.

Jeremy Swayman made 21 saves in the win, and the victory extended Boston’s point streak to eight games at 7-0-1, improving the Bruins’ record to 9-2-1 and completing a season-series sweep of San Jose. That is the context the fights sometimes obscure: Boston keeps finding ways to win games it plays badly in stretches, and Saturday was the most extreme version of that yet.

Is this kind of night normal for these teams?

Not quite this extreme, but the ingredients are familiar. Boston has been here before this season: Darnell Nurse fired back at a reporter with a ‘low IQ’ jab before facing the Oilers, and the Bruins’ physical edge has been a running theme. The difference on Saturday was the concentration of it: two fights, 16 penalties, and a milestone all in one night, with the comeback layered on top. Compare it with the boarding major that knocked Matinpalo out against Ottawa, or the stick jab that cost Rodrigues $5,000 after being downgraded from a spear, and the pattern is clear: the league’s disciplinary line gets tested most often in games like this one, where the hitting and the scoring arrive together.

The no-penalty hit that sent Ekman-Larsson off against Lauzon showed the other side of the same coin earlier this month: a heavy hit that drew no penalty at all, and a player who returned to practice a day later. Saturday’s officials called almost everything, and the game still produced two fights. That suggests the line between a physical game and a penalty-filled one is thinner than the rulebook implies, and that both teams were happy to play right on it.

What happens next?

Carolina on Tuesday, and two open questions travelling with the Bruins. The first is whether the league reviews Kastelic’s boarding hit on Kesselring, which was penalised in the game but could still draw a second look. The second is when Pastrnak scores his 428th goal and moves past Bergeron outright. Neither needs an answer tonight. Saturday already gave Boston the win, the streak, the fights and the milestone, which is more than most games manage in eighty-two tries.