Brad Marchand scored the winning goal on a last-minute breakaway in the second period, and added an assist on Tuesday night at TD Garden, helping the Bruins extend their points streak to 17 consecutive games (13-0-4) with a 3-2 victory over the Devils.
BOSTON — Complaints that only one player from the NHL’s hottest team has been invited to the NHL’s All-Star Weekend may or may not be justified.
It’s hard to argue with the lone Bruin chosen to head for Tampa after Thursday night’s game at Ottawa, though.
Brad Marchand scored the winning goal on a last-minute breakaway in the second period, and added an assist on Tuesday night at TD Garden, helping the Bruins extend their points streak to 17 consecutive games (13-0-4) with a 3-2 victory over the Devils.
Marchand, who missed eight games because of injury earlier this season, leads the B’s in goals (21), assists (29), and points (50), despite playing only 38 games.
Tuukka Rask made 37 saves — 20 in the scoreless first period — to improve his personal points streak to 17 games, at 15-0-2.
Playing for the first time this season without Charlie McAvoy, the rookie defenseman who underwent a procedure on Monday to treat an abnormal heartbeat, the Bruins went with defense pairs that had worked in the past.
Brandon Carlo replaced McAvoy next to captain Zdeno Chara, reuniting a pair that spent all of last season (Carlo’s first in the NHL) together. Adam McQuaid, in his fourth game back since recovering from a broken fibula, was teamed again with long-time partner Torey Krug, and Kevan Miller, who had missed the previous three games because of illness, stepped back in next to rookie Matt Grzelcyk — a tandem formed when Grzelcyk was called up from AHL Providence in late November.
While not all the fault of the defense pairs, the Bruins’ first period was their loosest all year. They surrendered a season-high 20 shots in the first 20 minutes.
Rask stopped them all, but the Devils finally beat him 2:05 into the second period. Miles Wood got the goal, his 13th of the season, by finding space between Rask, Chara, Carlo, and Jake DeBrusk to tip Will Butcher’s shot under Rask’s glove.
That goal started a wild five-goal period that was slowed down only by a problem with the game clock after Patrice Bergeron finished Marchand’s pass to tie it, 2-2, with a 5-on-3 goal at 12:53.
The delay lasted more than 10 minutes.
The sequence began when Riley Nash answered Wood’s goal at 7:03. After he and linemate Danton Heinen applied a heavy forecheck in the corner to the right of Devils goalie Cory Schneider, Nash emerged with the puck and fired toward the net. The shot hit the stick of defenseman Sami Vatanen and spun behind Schneider for Nash’s seventh goal of the season.
The Devils answered exactly two minutes later. After Krug stepped into a one-timer that knocked Bergeron down in front of Schneider, the Devils took off on a quick 3-on-2 rush that resulted in Damon Severson’s go-ahead goal at 9:03.
The Bruins, who had to kill a Grzelcyk penalty to stay within a goal, went on a power play of their own when Wood took minors for cross-checking and interference at 11:30, and Marcus Johansson followed 33 seconds later with a tripping penalty.
Bergeron’s 20th of the season, with assists from Marchand and Krug, made it 2-2 before Marchand’s pretty backhanded goal beat Schneider for what proved to be the game-winner.
The Bruins killed off a late penalty in the third period before the final buzzer.
Mike Loftus writes for the Patriot Ledger of GateHouse Media.