The Bruins erased a two-goal deficit and beat the Blues on a late David Pastrnak strike

On By Littum

Pastrnak drilled a one-timer off a Charlie McAvoy relay past Jordan Binnington with just 1:47 left to seal the 2 points.

“What a crazy shift that was. There were a couple of looks that we saw and obviously McAvoy and Mason (Lohrei) were doing their thing and buzzing around a little bit and they kind of collapsed on the puck, it bounced to Pav (Pavel Zacha) , I think he kicked it to (McAvoy) and it got to me,” Pastrnak said before bursting into laughter. “And I shot it as hard as I could.”

Binnington bent as if he had squeezed it, but it was by him.

It was the team-high 10th shot of the night and the team’s seventh goal of the season for Pastrnak, who led all forwards with 24:29 of ice time.

The Bruins (8-7-2) entered the third in an 0-2 hole, but continued to push the pace despite losing top defenseman Hampus Lindholm to a lower-body injury late in the first period.

With that adversity staring them in the face, the Bruins remained steely-eyed.

“They scored a couple of nice power-play goals in the second and we got behind,” coach Jim Montgomery said. “But we talked about staying at it for 60 minutes and playing the right way. And even though we made a couple mistakes in the third still because you’re going to make mistakes, it’s a game about mistakes. We just kept going to fight; we kept playing the right way. We got to the goal line and we got some great goals.”

The Bruins evened things up with a pair of goals set up by their leaders.

First it was Pastrnak.

The wily winger stole the puck and ran into St. Louis end. He waited patiently and then aimed a pass over to Morgan Geekie, who beat Binnington under the right cushion with a one-timer at 4:53 for his first of the season.

“It’s always nice to get the first one, especially just coming back into the lineup,” Geekie said. “So it’s good. It helps a lot. It’s good mentally.”

The equalizer came from McAvoy.

Brad Marchand dug the puck out of a cluster of skates and sent it back to the blue line, where McAvoy unleashed a backscratcher past Binnington’s glove side at 9:15.

“Great play by Brazz (Justin Brazeau) to introduce himself and then a little bit of that puck luck you need,” McAvoy said. “So it’s hard work, they won a game him and (Marchand) and then Marchy looked like he was going to shoot it and I just shouted at him as loud as I could that I wanted it and great patience of him to turn, hear me open up and feed me a good spot and just get past the first layer, go to the net.”

From there, the Bruins kept up the pressure, buzzing Binnington (27 saves) and putting the Blues (7-9-0) in their own end until Pastrnak hammered home the clinching goal.

The Bruins owned the first period territorially, but neither team could score during the first 20.

Boston suffered a demoralizing four-minute stretch that changed momentum in the second.

Cole Koepke was called for high-sticking and the Blues made it sting, with Brayden Schenn knocking in a rebound off Jordan Kyrou’s slot shot for a 1-0 lead at 9:24.

A little more than a minute later, St. Louis back to the man advantage when Pastrnak clipped Oskar Sundqvist.

Again the Blues threw it in and doubled their lead.

This time it was an unmarked Sundqvist who collected a Dylan Holloway pass at the post to Jeremy Swayman’s left.

It was the first two power-play goals the Blues had scored all season at home (nine games).

The energy the Bruins had been playing with was snuffed out and they battled through the final eight minutes of the period.

The Bruins came out with renewed spirit in the third and finally cracked the Binnington mystery. Meanwhile, Swayman (20 saves) kept the Blues from extending their lead.

“You can really build these things on,” McAvoy said. “You’ve got to do the right things going forward. But there’s a couple of times in a year when you win a game like this or something like that happens, you come back and find a way like we did tonight , and you can really build on them. And we did tonight, and we’ve got to do the right things going forward.”

Jim McBride can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him @globejimmcbride.