BOSTON — Tuukka Rask stopped 31 shots in his 46th career shutout, leading the Boston Bruins to a 3-0 victory over the New Jersey Devils to win their home opener on Saturday night.
Brad Marchand, Joakim Nordstrom and Patrice Bergeron all scored in the Bruins’ first game on home ice since losing 4-1 in Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final against the St. Louis Blues in June. Boston won its first three road games this season before a 4-2 loss at Colorado on Thursday night.
Cory Schneider stopped 29 shots for the Devils, who are 0-3-2.
Boston took a 2-0 lead after one period with a pair of goals in the first 12 minutes.
Marchand put the Bruins on the scoreboard 3:33 in when he skated to the high slot and fired a wrist shot to beat a screened Schneider.
Nordstrom doubled the lead with 8:38 left in the period. Sean Kuraly corralled a rebound in the slot and backhanded the puck to Chris Wagner, whose pass in front of the crease was finished off by Nordstrom.
Bergeron made it 3-0 on a power-play goal with 46 seconds left in the second period, poking in a rebound of Marchand’s shot from the right circle.
Rask turned away a handful of Devils’ scoring chances during a second period mostly controlled by the visitors with a 16-9 shots advantage. He also stymied New Jersey in the third to pick up his first shutout of the season.
NEW YORK — Connor McDavid scored the tiebreaking goal, Leon Draisaitl had two goals and an assist, all in the third period, and the Edmonton Oilers beat the New York Rangers, 4-1, Saturday for their season-opening fifth straight win.
Oscar Klefbom had a goal and an assist, McDavid also had an assist, and Mike Smith stopped 20 shots to help Edmonton complete a sweep of the New York area teams. The Oilers beat the Islanders 4-1 on Tuesday night, and then edged New Jersey 4-3 in a shootout Thursday night.
Edmonton, 5-0-0 for the first time in 34 years, became the first team in NHL history to win its first five games after trailing in each.
Rookie Kaapo Kakko had his first NHL goal for the Rangers, who had won their first two games but were playing for the first time in a week. Henrik Lundqvist made 23 saves.
OTTAWA — Vladislav Namestnikov scored his first two goals for his new team late in the third period to lift Ottawa over Tampa Bay for its first win of the season.
Colin White and Jean-Gabriel Pageau also scored as the Senators ended a franchise-worst 0-3-0 start. Craig Anderson stopped 19 shots.
Ondrej Palat and Luke Witkowski scored for Tampa Bay, and Curtis McElhinney stopped 30 shots.
Namestnikov, drafted by the Lightning in 2011, had notched only an assist in his Senators debut on Thursday after he was acquired from the New York Rangers on Monday.
Against Tampa Bay, he scored the tiebreaking goal with 3:03 remaining and added an empty-netter with just seconds left.
The Senators outshot the reigning Presidents’ Trophy winners 34-21. Tampa Bay looked sluggish at times two days after their soring outburst in a 7-3 win at Toronto.
It was the third-straight game the Senators faced a backup goalie, as McElhinney started for the Lightning instead of reigning Vezina Trophy winner Andrei Vasilevskiy.
Mark Borowiecki nearly broke it open early for the Senators, hitting the crossbar less than a minute into the game. It was a sign of things to come in the opening period as Ottawa outshot the Lightning 12-5 over the first 20 minutes.
But the Senators — who came into the game last in the league on the power play — couldn’t capitalize on any of their opportunities, including going 0 for 2 with the man advantage.
Tampa Bay served two avoidable penalties early in the second. First, the Lightning were caught for having too many men on the ice and then Erik Cernak was whistled for playing the puck with his hands.
The Senators couldn’t convert on the 5-on-3 or with the man advantage, continuing their scoreless streak on the power play.
However, after Brady Tkachuk poked a bouncing puck across to Bobby Ryan as he fell to the ice, Ryan found a wide-open White who ripped a wrist shot over McElhinney’s glove for his first with 6:16 left in the first.
Ottawa fans barely had enough time to sit down after they celebrated White’s goal as Palat got his third of the season for the Lightning just 33 seconds later to tie the score.
With 27 seconds left in the first, Pageau scored his first of the season after chipping in a bouncing puck under Anderson’s glove.
Defenseman Nikita Zaitsev was key on the defensive side, neutralizing Nikita Kucherov and made an important stop early in the third to preserve the Senators’ one-goal lead.
But Witkowski’s wrist shot from the left circle tied it 2-2 with his first at 8:56 of the third.
It looked like the Lightning took a 3-2 lead just past the mid-way point of the third, but after a penalty on Tkachuk with 8:10 left made it 4-on-4, a goal by Kucherov was waved off.