The Bruins have done their job on TD Garden ice this season.
And Marco Sturm’s club made sure they ended their pre-Olympic break home slate on a positive note, with a 6-3 beatdown of the Flyers on Thursday night. The win was Boston’s ninth straight win on home ice, and improved their home record to 21-8-1 on the year, with only the NHL-best Avalanche better in their own building this season.
The Bruins started hot in this one, too, with a first period effort headlined by two goals in 41 seconds to take a 2-0 lead. Boston’s first goal came courtesy of a five-hole, one-time tuck by Viktor Arvidsson, while Pavel Zacha went top shelf on the very next shift.
Arvidsson’s tally, which came with helpers to Casey Mittelstadt and Fraser Minten, was his 13th goal of the season, and his 27th point of the season. That’s as many as he had in 67 games for the Oilers a season ago, with the crafty wing matching that in just 43 games this year.
Zacha’s goal, meanwhile, was his fifth of the month and his 15th of the season, eclipsing last year’s total he had in 82 games for the Bruins.
The Bruins added three more goals in the second period, too, with markers from Minten, Mittelstadt, and Tanner Jeannot. Two of those three additional goals came with under four minutes remaining in the middle frame and in a span of just 2:28, too.
The push was enough to chase Flyers netminder Sammy Ersson from this contest after just two periods of play and just 15 saves.
At the other end of the sheet, Philly’s goals on Jeremy Swayman in this one were straight-up gifted to them by the Bruins. The first Flyer goal was the result of a downright brutal giveaway by Sean Kuraly right to Travis Konecny all alone between the circles, while a Nikita Zadorov missed shot took a friendly bounce around the Garden glass and sent Konecny and Nikita Grebenkin in on Swayman.
And with the game out of reach late in the third, the Flyers played some pineball around Swayman on the power play before Matvei Michkov buried a loose puck 25 seconds into the Philly man advantage.
Otherwise, Swayman was solid, and finished with 33 saves on 36 shots for his 22nd win of the season, matching his total from last year.
Skating in the middle of Boston’s third line with Mikey Eyssimont and Marat Khusnutdinov to begin his night, Poitras had a great look to the left of Ersson in the first period but was denied by Ersson’s glove. The 21-year-old’s role grew by the night’s end, too, as the Bruins lost Pavel Zacha to an upper-body injury in the second period of play.
Prior to the game, the Bruins honored their eight players representing their respective countries in the 2026 Olympics.
The Black and Gold’s Olympic contingent includes David Pastrnak and Zacha for Czechia, Henri Jokiharju for Finland, Dans Locmelis for Latvia, Elias Lindholm and Hampus Lindholm for Sweden, and Charlie McAvoy and Jeremy Swayman for Team USA. Bruins head coach Marco Sturm, who had previously coached Team Germany at the Olympics, will not be coaching the Germans in the Olympics this year, as he wanted to focus on his first year behind the bench as an NHL head coach.
Up next, the Bruins will practice in Boston on Friday before they make their way down to Tampa for Sunday’s 2026 Stadium Series head-to-head with the Lightning at Raymond James Stadium. It will be the first of a two-game road trip in Florida leading to the league’s Olympic break.
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