Pastrnak scores 400th NHL goal, Bruins top Maple Leafs to win 7th in row

BOSTON -- David Pastrnak scored his 400th and 401st NHL goals, helping the Boston Bruins win their seventh straight game by defeating the Toronto Maple Leafs 5-3 at TD Garden on Tuesday.

Pastrnak added an assist, Hampus Lindholm had a goal and an assist, and Charlie McAvoy had two assists for the Bruins (11-7-0), who were coming off a 5-3 win at the Maple Leafs on Saturday. Jeremy Swayman made 30 saves.

“‘Pasta’ is obviously a special player,” Boston coach Marco Sturm said. “To score 400 goals in this league is pretty amazing, so we’re all really happy for him that he reached that milestone. Knowing him, he’s been probably thinking about that one for a long, long time. He’s such a good guy, too, and he means a lot to everyone here, not just our team, but also the organization and the fans. So, it was nice to do it at home as well.”

Auston Matthews left midway through the second period with a lower-body injury for the Maple Leafs (8-8-1), who lost their third straight. Anthony Stolarz allowed three goals on 11 shots before leaving after the first period with an upper-body injury. He was replaced by Dennis Hildeby, who made 19 saves.

Matthews was hit by Bruins defenseman Nikita Zadorov along the boards at 8:30 and exited the game 30 seconds later.

Toronto coach Craig Berube did not have an update on Matthews after the game and said the team would know more regarding the center's status Wednesday. Berube said he didn’t think Stolarz’s injury was serious.

Zadorov described the hit on Matthews as a normal play.

“I didn’t really hit him,” he said. “I hit him with my right shoulder, and 99 percent of my hits in the NHL are with my right shoulder. I’m not sure what hit he got hurt [on]. Like, when he came after me again, I counter-hit him, or maybe when I cleared the puck I hit him with the puck, so we’re not going to speculate on that.

“It was just routine. I didn’t really want to hit him. I wanted to prevent him from taking the middle and I just stood there. You can see on the video I hit him with my chest. There was no intention to hurt him. I just play hard against top players on the other team. That’s my job.”

Pastrnak scored the milestone goal at 49 seconds of the second to give the Bruins a 4-1 lead. Morgan Geekie sent him in with a one-touch pass from center ice, and Pastrnak beat Hildeby on a breakaway. As Geekie collected the keepsake from the Toronto net, the Boston players left the bench to congratulate Pastrnak.

“It really hit me when the guys came over,” Pastrnak said. “It was so cool what they did for me, and to top it off with a win is great.”

Pastrnak became the sixth player in Bruins history to reach the 400-goal mark, joining Johnny Bucyk (545), Phil Esposito (459), Patrice Bergeron (427), Brad Marchand (422) and Rick Middleton (402).

“They are legends, big names, great goal-scorers, great players, great human beings for the city, and it’s something that will sink in a little bit later, maybe when I retire,” Pastrnak said. “Now, when you are in the game you focus and flip the page on to the next day.”

Pavel Zacha scored a power-play goal to give the Bruins a 1-0 lead at 4:27 of the first. Pastrnak’s pass from the right face-off circle deflected off Zacha’s skate and got past Stolarz.

Steven Lorentz tied it 1-1 with a short-handed goal at 6:41. He stripped McAvoy of the puck and beat Swayman to the stick side with a wrist shot from the high slot.

Lindholm put Boston back in front 2-1 on the man-advantage at 9:32 when his wrist shot from above the left circle beat Stolarz to the top right corner.

Alex Steeves pushed the lead to 3-1 at 17:23, scoring with a wrist shot from the left circle that got through the five-hole. It was Steeves’ first goal for Boston in his second game with the team; he played 14 games with Toronto over the previous four seasons.

After Pastrnak extended the lead to three, Toronto cut it to 4-2 on Bobby McMann’s power-play goal at 18:58.

“We battled pretty hard,” Maple Leafs forward John Tavares said. “We just didn’t execute on some of our opportunities. We had a decent amount of looks that we weren’t able to capitalize [on] and finish some plays off. We were right there in the game, but early [on] we need to find a way to stay out of the box and carry momentum ourselves and not put ourselves behind like we did. We battled back and competed right to the end. We stuck together.”

Oliver Ekman-Larsson then pulled the Maple Leafs to within 4-3 at 3:32 of the third period with a wrist shot from the point before Pastrnak’s power-play goal at 9:48 made it 5-3. He scored with a wrist shot from low in the left circle off a cross-ice pass by Mark Kastelic.

NOTES: The last time the Bruins had a seven-game winning streak was March 30-April 13, 2023, when they won eight straight. They had five streaks of at least seven wins during the 2022-23 season. … With his 438th assist, Morgan Rielly passed Tomas Kaberle for second among defensemen in Maple Leafs history. Borje Salming is first with 620. … Toronto defenseman Brandon Carlo played at Boston for the first time since the Bruins traded him to the Maple Leafs on March 7. Carlo, who played his first nine seasons with the Bruins, had two hits and three blocked shots in 20:48 of ice time.