Bruins takeaways: B's beat Utah, snap losing streak as Sacco era begins

BOSTON -- The Joe Sacco era for the Bruins is off to a good start with a 1-0 win over the Utah Hockey Club on Thursday night at TD Garden.

It was Sacco's first game as B's interim head coach after the team fired Jim Montgomery on Tuesday.

After a scoreless first period, Elias Lindholm got the Bruins on the board with a power-play goal in the second period. It was his first goal since Oct. 12.

The win snapped the Bruins' three-game losing streak and improved their record to 9-9-3 (21 points), which moves them into a tie with the Buffalo Sabres for the second wild card playoff spot in the Eastern Conference.

Here are three takeaways from the first game of the Sacco era.

Bruins special teams, Elias Lindholm show signs of life

The Bruins power play came into this game ranked dead last with an 11.7 percent success rate, and after coming up empty on their first four opportunities with the man advantage, they finally broke through on the fifth.

The Bruins had three power-play opportunities in the first period alone, and they tallied 10 shots and five scoring chances during the six minutes with the man advantage. There were a few positives from Boston's power play despite the lack of scoring in the opening 20 minutes. The puck movement was a little faster and crisper. Georgii Merkulov was aggressive looking to shoot on the first power-play unit.

The Bruins' second power play of the second period (fifth overall) ended with Elias Lindholm scoring his first goal in 18 games. A couple quick passes opened a shooting lane for David Pastrnak, and Lindholm pounced on the loose puck in front of the net.

The Bruins finished 1-for-7 on the power play with 18 shots, 10 scoring chances and six high-danger chances. The power play's performance was a huge step in the right direction, and now it's up to the Bruins to build some consistency from it.

Boston's penalty kill also showed improvement, going a perfect 4-of-4. This unit allowed just three shots by Utah in 7:52 of shorthanded ice time. The Bruins came into Thursday with the No. 25th-ranked penalty kill at 76.5 percent.

Shot quantity over shot quality

The Bruins ranked 26th in the league in shots per game (27.1) through the first 20 games under Montgomery. They were a shot quality team as opposed to shot quantity.

Now with Sacco in charge and the Bruins desperate to improve their 31st-ranked goal scoring output, expect them to be a shot quantity group and fire as many pucks on net as possible.

We saw evidence of that in the first period as the B's earned a 15-5 shots advantage after 20 minutes of action.

The Bruins finished with 31 shots overall. It's just the sixth time in 21 games that they've reached the 30-shot mark. Boston's plus-10 shot differential (31-21) is its second-highest in a game this season.

David Pastrnak and Pavel Zacha each tallied five shots to lead the team. The blue line also chipped in with eight shots as a group. All six Bruins defensemen were credited with at least one shot.

The Bruins have a tall, physical team. Getting a lot of shots on net and then crashing the crease for rebounds is the way this team should play offensively. They don't have enough high-end offensive skill to get too cute with their passing and constantly try to set up the perfect scoring chance.

Joonas Korpisalo deserves some more starts

Bruins backup netminder Joonas Korpisalo got his seventh start of the season Thursday and he gave another strong performance. The Bruins didn't allow many quality chances, but the Finnish goalie stopped 21 of the shots he faced for his second shutout of the campaign.

Korpisalo has made four starts in November and he has a 3-0-1 record with an impressive .932 save percentage in those games. The veteran goalie has outplayed Jeremy Swayman, who has underwhelmed with a 5-7-2 record, a .884 save percentage, a 3.47 GAA and minus-7.3 goals saved above expected.

Swayman will improve. There's no doubt about that. But the Bruins should give Korpisalo a little more playing time while Swayman finds his groove. Korpisalo has earned it with his play. He deserves to be in net for the Bruins' next game against the Red Wings in Detroit on Saturday.