Bruins top Preds, spoil Hynes’ debut

NASHVILLE, Tenn — David Pastrnak scored for the third consecutive game, Tuukka Rask made 34 saves and the Boston Bruins beat the Nashville Predators, 6-2, on Tuesday night.

Danton Heinen, Patrice Bergeron, Chris Wagner, David Krejci and Charlie Coyle also scored for the Bruins, who snapped a three-game losing streak.

Filip Forsberg and Mikael Granlund scored for Nashville, which has lost five of six. Pekka Rinne finished with 30 saves.

New Nashville coach John Hynes lost his debut. Hynes replaced Peter Laviolette, who was fired on Monday after 5½ seasons as head coach.

Pastrnak scored the game's first goal at 1:36 of the opening period. Driving down the right side, Pastrnak fired a slap shot from just above the faceoff dot that beat Rinne on the glove side.

Pastrnak has goals in three straight games and extended his point scoring streak to 11.

Heinen made it 2-0 at 8:21 of the second.

From the high slot, Heinen sent a shot past Predators defenseman Matt Irwin, who slid in an attempt to block it. But the drive beat Rinne high to the far side for his seventh of the season.

Forsberg cut the Boston lead in half at 10:54 of the second. With the Predators on a 5-on-3 power play, Forsberg’s shot from the high slot squeezed between Rask’s right arm and body. Predators captain Roman Josi assisted on the goal. Josi has points in 11 consecutive games. It’s the longest point streak by a defenseman in the NHL this season

Bergeron’s power-play goal at 17:42 of the second restored Boston’s two-goal lead and Wagner scored his first goal in a month at 2:51 of the third.

Granlund scored a power-play goal at 18:06 of the third, but Krejci and Coyle scored 22 seconds apart to conclude the scoring.

Earlier in the day, Nashville GM David Poile completed something he has rarely done in nearly 40 years as a general manager: He made a mid-season coaching change after being fed up with the Predators underachieving.

Poile announced the hiring of Hynes, the former New Jersey Devils coach, as the third coach in franchise history. Poile said the Predators are much better than they have performed this season with some players way playing below their potential or the team’s expectations.

“For me personally, this has been the hardest year that I’ve ever had because we have been totally unable to meet expectations for ourselves on the ice ...,” Poile said. “There’s been a lot of criticism of our play. There has been a lot of inconsistencies with our play. So many games that we’ve played this year I felt we were going to win the game, and for whatever happened that win and that point was taken away from us.”

The Predators (19-15-7) had dropped four of five games entering Tuesday. They were 11th in the Western Conference standings with 45 points.

Hynes, 44, was 150-149-5 as head coach with the New Jersey Devils, who fired him Dec. 3 despite signing him to a multiyear extension last January. He was let go after a 9-13-4 start that left New Jersey in last place in the Metropolitan Division and with the NHL’s second-worst record.

Poile was not deterred by Hynes’ recent struggles, saying the coach is a great leader.

“He has a great track record of both effectively developing younger players and successfully motivating veteran players,” Poile said. “We’re confident that he’s the guy to cultivate a winning culture in our locker room.”

Besides New Jersey, Hynes spent time in the AHL as head coach of Wilkes-Barre/Scranton for five seasons after being an assistant coach. He also spent nine seasons on the staff of the USA Hockey National Team Development program, including as head coach from 2003-09.

“The Nashville job is special,” Hynes said. “I’m very excited to be able to work with this team. It’s very talented, it’s well built. There’s a lot of different dimensions, and it comes from an extremely successful tradition.”

Hynes also coached the Americans to gold at the 2004 World Junior Championship, their first medal there since 1997.

Poile also announced that long-time NHL defense-man Rob Scuderi will be an interim assistant coach, transitioning from his role in the Predators hockey operations department.

Around the boards

Boston is 15-0-5 when leading after two periods this season. ... Rask is 5-1-2 in his career against the Predators. ... Bruins D Torey Krug has assists in three consecutive games. ... Nashville C Matt Duchene returned to the lineup after missing two games due to an illness.

Up next

Bruins: Host Winnipeg Jets on Thursday.

Predators: Visit Chicago Blackhawks on Thursday.