Pavel Zacha had a goal and an assist Saturday as the visiting Boston Bruins beat the Pittsburgh Penguins 6-4 to move into first place in the Atlantic Division.
Jake DeBrusk, Kevin Shattenkirk, Brad Marchand, Morgan Geekie and Danton Heinen also scored, and Charlie Coyle and David Pastrnak each added two assists for the Bruins (47-18-15, 109 points), who have won five of six.
Boston goaltender Linus Ullmark made 28 saves.
Michael Bunting scored twice, Drew O’Connor had a goal and an assist, and Bryan Rust also scored for the Penguins (37-31-12, 86 points), who had their 10-game point streak (7-0-3) snapped and are one point behind a trio of teams that are tied for the second wild-card berth in the East.
Pittsburgh goaltender Alex Nedeljkovic was pulled after allowing three goals on 16 shots. Tristan Jarry made 12 saves in relief.
DeBrusk opened the scoring at 8:08 of the second. Nedeljkovic made a stop on Andrew Peeke’s shot, but DeBrusk poked the puck between the goalie’s pads.
Boston made it 2-0 just 14 seconds later. On a rebound of a Matt Grzelcyk shot out to the slot, Zacha lifted the puck over Nedeljkovic’s glove.
The Penguins closed to within 2-1 at 10:27 of the second. O’Connor drove down the right side and threaded a pass to Rust, who chipped the puck over Ullmark’s stick.
Shattenkirk boosted Boston’s lead to 3-1 at 11:35 of the second when he went high far side on a shot from the right dot.
Nedeljkovic exited for Jarry, who had not played since March 24.
The first shot Jarry faced came from Marchand alone in front and produced a short-handed goal at 14:54 of the second to make it 4-1.
On the same Pittsburgh power play, Bunting scored on a tap-in that squeezed inside the left post at 15:52 to close it to 4-2.
O’Connor got around Marchand in Boston’s end and beat Ullmark glove side for a short-handed goal at 4:32 of the third to make it 4-3.
Geekie, from the slot, converted a feed from deep by Jakub Lauko at 14:10 of the third to boost it to 5-3.
Heinen scored an empty-netter with 2:47 left before Bunting scored with 1:21 left.
–Field Level Media
