BOSTON, MA – JANUARY 06: Boston Bruins center Trent Frederic (11) reacts to his second goal of the night during a game between the Boston Bruins and the Tampa Bay Lightning on January 6, 2024, at TD Garden in Boston, Massachusetts. (Photo by Fred Kfoury III/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
Trent Frederic scored two goals, David Pastrnak added his team-leading 24th and the Boston Bruins beat the Tampa Bay Lightning 7-3 on Saturday night.
Charlie McAvoy, Morgan Geekie, Charlie Coyle and Jake DeBrusk also scored for Boston, which has won five of its last six games. Hampus Lindholm and Matt Poitras each had two assists, and Linus Ullmark made 23 saves.
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The loss spoiled Tampa Bay coach Jon Cooper’s chance to become the 29th coach to reach 500 NHL wins for at least one game.
Brayden Point scored two goals and Nikita Kucherov had a goal with two assists for the Lightning, who have dropped four of six. Andrei Vasilevskiy stopped 20 shots.
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After the Bruins gave up Point’s goal 21 seconds into the game, Frederic tied it with his power-play score at 4:42. The Bruins forward got a pass in the slot, quickly shifted from his backhand to forehand and shoveled it over Vasilevskiy’s right pad.
“I think his confidence has increased his poise with the puck, and he's got tremendous hands," Bruins coach Jim Montgomery said of Frederic. “In practice he's scores more than anyone except for (Pastrnak).”
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Seconds after Frederic’s hard check sent Emil Martinsen Lilleberg into the side boards and brought a loud roar from the TD Garden crowd, McAvoy’s goal pushed Boston ahead 2-1 with 5:04 left in the first when his wrister from the right point deflected off Point’s stick and sailed over Vasilevskiy.
Frederic added his second early into the second period, scoring off his own rebound when it caromed in off the back of Vasilevskiy’s right pad to make it 3-1.
“A lot of that is confidence,” Fredric said of his 12 goals this season. “I don't think it's something that I haven't had, it's just having that confidence to look up to have the puck on certain parts of you stick.”
Tampa Bay sliced it to 3-2 on Kuchreov’s hustle goal before Pavel Zacha sent Pastrnak in on a semi-breakaway. The Bruins’ star forward fired a wrister past Vasilevskiy’s glove to restore the two-goal lead, then pumped his left fist as he was gliding on one knee celebrating along the boards.
Point’s second cut the Lightning's deficit to one again late in the second when he scored off a cross-ice feed from Kucherov, but Geekie made it 5-3 at 1:35 of the third.
“Penalties hurt us early, took a little wind out of our sails and we kind of got ourselves back,” Cooper said. “Weird game. A lot of weird pucks going in the net. … The bottom line is a 4-3 game going into the third and they took advantage of their three shots.”
DeBrusk’s empty-net short-handed score sealed it with 3:26 to play, and Coyle scored his 14th just 40 seconds later.
Copper was whistled for a misconduct when he was screaming at the referees after Frederic’s second goal.
UP NEXT
Lightning: Host the Los Angeles Kings on Tuesday.
Bruins: At the Colorado Avalanche on Monday.
