Jeremy Swayman pitches 33-save shutout in 3-0 win for Bruins over Wild

The Bruins scored a pair of second period goals and Jeremy Swayman made them hold up with a 33-save shutout for a 3-0 victory over the Minnesota Wild at the Garden on Tuesday.

Charlie McAvoy and Trent Frederic scored in the second and Morgan Geekie finished it off with an empty-net goal to grab the two precious points.

It was Swayman’s first shutout of the season.

Minnesota was without their superstar Kirill Kaprizov (knee) and sandpaper forward Ryan Hartman (suspension) but the B’s were expecting a big push from the Wild. They’d been embarrassed in a 6-0 loss in Ottawa and they came in with an impressive 20-6-3 road record.

But after the Wild owned the first 10 minutes of the game, the B’s swarmed the Minnesota end for the rest of the scoreless first period, outshooting the visitors 14-7. Unfortunately for the B’s, 40-year-old Marc-Andre Fleury was looking like vintage Flower. He stoned Pavel Zacha on a clean look from 18 feet out in the slot and later made a good glove save – with his usual windmilling panache – on Charlie McAvoy on a Bruin power play.

But on a long shift by the first line inside the Minnesota zone early in the second period, the B’s broke the ice. Charlie McAvoy had made an earlier rush in deep that was unsuccessful but he remained aggressive and picked up his seventh goal of the year when he deflected home David Pastrnak’s blue line wrister at 5:46.

The B’s were all over the Wild end after that, earning a power play. Though they had a lot of zone time, they could not extend the lead.

But they finally did so at 14:16. With the B’s breaking out on a 3-on-2, Matt Poitras made a terrific cross-ice pass to Trent Frederic on the left wing and Frederic buried his eighth of the year over Fleury’s glove arm.

Then it was time for Jeremy Swayman to make a flashy glove save. After the B’s fourth line got caught out with the Wild’s top unit, Swayman robbed Matt Boldy on a one-timer attempt at 15:26.

The B’s maintained their two-goal lead going into the third, but they really had to hang on in the final couple of minutes. Nikita Zadorov was stuck out on the for a whopping 3:05 while his partner Andrew Peeke was able to get a change after a 2:36 shift. The third line of Poitras, Frederic and Oliver Wahlstrom were also on for approximately as long as Peeke.

After Swayman had to five saves in the final few minutes, the B’s held a 28-21 shot advantage through two periods.

The B’s had a chance to take a comfortable 3-0 lead early in the third period on an odd-man rush. Elias Lindholm sent a pass to Charlie Coyle, wo would have had an empty net if Brock Faber had not barely deflected it.

Zadorov took crosschecking penalty at 6:48 but the B’s were able to kill it off well, with Brandon Carlo killing off a good chunk of it by pinning the puck along the kick plate.

Then Oliver Wahlstrom took an offensive zone tripping penalty at 11:12. They killed that one, too, and Wahlstrom had a clean breakaway out of the box but he hit the post.