BOSTON — Only recently were the Boston Bruins being called out by their CEO while the New York Rangers were flying.
Things change quickly.
The Bruins ripped off their fifth consecutive win Thursday night, handing the Rangers, a team that had won 13 of 14 and swept three games in California, a second straight 3-0 loss.
“We’re finding ways to win games,” right winger Loui Eriksson said after scoring the last of Boston’s three goals in the latest victory. “We’re playing a much better team game, I think. Of course Tuukka (Rask, the goaltender) was great for us tonight in net.
“It’s nice to be on a winning streak and just keep playing like we’ve been doing and hopefully we can get more wins.”
A winning streak is what the Rangers were on until they lost to the New York Islanders at Madison Square Garden on Tuesday night.
And Thursday?
“Not a very good game by us,” New York right winger Martin St. Louis said after the first of three meetings between the Original Six teams this season.
Rask turned aside 30 shots for his second shutout of the season.
Centers Patrice Bergeron and David Krejci also scored goals against backup goaltender Cam Talbot. Defenseman Torey Krug had his second straight two-assist game.
Bergeron connected four minutes into the game, converting a rebound of a shot by defenseman Dougie Hamilton. Then, just 2:49 into the second period, Krug’s nifty slap pass to an open Krejci beside the net was easily tapped home.
Eriksson scored his first goal in nine games on a rebound with 10:11 left in the third period.
Both Krejci and Krug have five-game point-scoring streaks coinciding with the team’s winning streak. The surge came on the heels of CEO Charlie Jacobs saying the team’s play, which had Boston on the outside of the playoff picture, was unacceptable.
The win moved the Bruins, who have outscored their opponents 16-6 during the streak, two points ahead of the Rangers for the top wild-card spot in the Eastern Conference.
The Rangers, who had won four straight and eight of their last nine on the road coming in, had three break-ins on Rask and also hit a post in the first two periods.
Rask stopped left winger Chris Kreider and right winger Lee Stempniak on partial breaks in the first period, and left winger Rick Nash picked Hamilton’s pocket and went in alone in the second, shooting wide.
“He was really good for us tonight,” Boston coach Claude Julien said of Rask. “This team has a lot of speed, the Rangers, and we acknowledged that before the game. They certainly displayed it at times, and when there was the odd breakdown and they had opportunities to score, Tuukka was up to the task there and made some big saves for us. No doubt, in my mind, he was our best player tonight.”
The Rangers seemed to agree.
“I think we were outworked by their goalie,” Nash said. “Playing against a guy like that, one of the top goalies in the league, you gotta outwork him if you want to score goals and put it in the back of the net.”
After giving up a bad rebound on the first goal, Talbot, 4-1 with a 1.33 goals-against average in his last six appearances coming in, settled down and played well.
“First and foremost, I gotta find a way to keep that first one out of the net and not give them the momentum early,” Talbot said. “That’s a rebound that I can’t give up. I either gotta swallow that or at least put it in the corner.”
The shutout was the 25th of Rask’s career, his second against New York.
NOTES: Bruins GM Peter Chiarelli made it official after the first period Thursday night: RW David Pastrnak, coming off back-to-back two-goal games, is staying with the team. The 25th pick of the first round of last year’s NHL draft will burn the first year of his entry-level contract when the Bruins host the Columbus Blue Jackets on Saturday night. A factor in his staying was the way he dominated at Providence.