BOSTON — Ryan Spooner wasn’t alive when Jaromir Jagr broke into the NHL with the Pittsburgh Penguins in 1990.
On Saturday, the 23-year-old center scored two goals to lead Boston to a 3-1 victory over Jagr and the Florida Panthers.
“He’s a guy that keeps learning and a young guy and I can’t say enough about the way he sees the ice,” said center Patrice Bergeron, who had two assists in the win, one to Spooner on the power play, where the Bruins often play three centers at the same time. “He’s definitely a threat to when he’s on his game and on the ice and making plays like that.”
Spooner, notching his third career two-goal game, scored his sixth and seventh goals of the season as the Bruins (16-9-3) beat the Panthers (14-12-4) for the ninth straight time at TD Garden and improved to 12-1-1 in the last 14 games against Florida, 18-3-1 in the last 21.
Goaltender Tuukka Rask (14-2-1 against Florida) had an easy path until the third period, when the Panthers took over the play and former Bruins right winger Reilly Smith scored on a slap shot with 6:04 left — a shot Rask should have had.
Panthers goaltender Roberto Luongo was barely to the bench for an extra attacker when Boston left winger Brad Marchand scored his team-leading 14th goal of the season into the empty net with 1:23 left.
After a slow start to the season, Rask, who made 13 of his 26 stops in the third period, is 6-0-2 in his last eight starts. And, after a 2-6-1 home start, the Bruins are 4-1 in their last five at TD Garden. They also moved to within six points of the first-place Montreal Canadiens in the Atlantic Division, with two games in hand (Montreal had a game Saturday night).
Luongo, who had a rough time of it in goal for the Vancouver Canucks when the Bruins beat them in the 2011 Stanley Cup final, made 22 saves but gave up a soft second goal to Spooner. He fell to 10-11-3 on the season.
“It was a pretty flat game; it was a defensive-minded game and there wasn’t a whole lot of scoring chances,” Florida coach Gerard Gallant said. “Fortunately for them they got that first goal and it held up for quite a while, and we just didn’t generate enough tonight.”
By not scoring, the 43-year-old Jagr remained tied with Marcel Dionne for fourth place on the NHL’s all-time goals list, with 731.
Panthers center Dave Bolland, who scored the 2013 Stanley Cup-winning goal for the Chicago Blackhawks against the Bruins at TD Garden, was guilty of throwing a poor pass toward the blue line as the Bruins took the lead 11:35 into the game. The puck went directly to defenseman Torey Krug, whose shot was tipped out of the air by Spooner.
Luongo immediately waved his glove calling for a high stick, the goal was reviewed, the replays were inconclusive and the goal stood.
Spooner made it 2-0 on the Bruins’ league-leading power play eight minutes into the second.
Before Smith scored, earlier in the third period, Bruins left winger Zac Rinaldo nailed Panthers rookie center Connor Brickley with a hard check and former Bruins right winger Shawn Thornton stepped in and pummeled Rinaldo to the ice. Brickley, who absorbed three major hits in the game, went to the locker room — joining center Derek McKenzie, injured earlier — but returned to finish the game.
“Derek is a big loss,” Gallant said. “He’s an energy guy. He’s worked hard and he’s played very well lately, especially the last few games. It was big loss. We had to adjust a little bit, but that’s part of the game.”