Bruins hold on to beat Avalanche

The Bruins also dodged a bullet when Brad Marchand appeared to avoid injury after taking a few hard hits.

The Boston captain didn’t come out early in the third period, but eventually came back and finished the game.

Marchand crashed into the boards behind the net after a thunderous check from Josh Manson and later received what appeared to be an elbow to the head from Mikko Rantanen, who was penalized for interfering with play.

“Brad is fine,” Montgomery said. “Just a cramp.”

Charlie Coyle, who scored his first goal of the season, said it was a “huge” improvement to see Marchand come back to help beat Colorado.

“You never know what’s going on, the captain doesn’t come out right away and suddenly you get a jolt of life when you see him,” Coyle said. “And I think if it were up to him, he would come out every time, no matter what, of course… He’s our leader, he’s one of our best players, and we need him in the lineup, and that’s always the case.” It gave us a little boost of life to see him back out there and just his drive, his motivation to be out there with us.”

The win was also the first as a Bruin for Joonas Korpisalo, who was solid throughout the game but was particularly strong in the third period when he stopped 13 of 14 shots.

The Avalanche scored all three goals on the power play – one each from Ross Colton, Cale Makar and Rantanen.

“Korpy was really good for us tonight,” said defenseman Hampus Lindholm.

The Bruins scored first when Cole Koepke deflected a snapper from Andrew Peeke past Alexander Georgiev (20 saves).

After Colton tied Rantanen, Coyle restored the lead with a power play goal.

Mason Lohrei received the dump-in from Hampus Lindholm, rolled to the top of the right circle and sent a pass through the skates of defenseman Samuel Girard Coyle for a tap-in.

“I didn’t know what was going to happen, but I knew he saw me and I just tried to present myself and Mason as a pretty talented player and he thought I was pretty good,” Coyle said. “I didn’t have to do much with it. He put it on a plate.”

The Bruins extended their lead to 4-1 with a few tough goals.

As Rantanen ended up in the box for his foul on Marchand, Hampus Lindholm jumped in deep and fired a nice pass across the blue paint to David Pastrnak, who went all the way to Bobby Orr and slammed the puck home as it flew through the air in front of Georgiev .

Hampus Lindholm scored just 13 seconds after Pastrnak assisted. Lindholm caught one from the top of the circle that Georgiev never saw, thanks in part to a nice screen from Johnny Beecher.

After two goals, Makar shortened the score to 4:2 with an absolute throw from the blue line.

Rantanen’s goal five minutes into the third period brought the Avalanche to life before Marchand’s return bolstered the Bruins’ finishing efforts.

Johnny Beecher provided the crowning glory with an empty goal.

Hampus Lindholm said the fast start was key for the Bruins.

“That was something we definitely emphasized as a team,” he said. “I mean, their team has a lot of offensive power and given the altitude and everything, we really wanted to make sure we got off to a good start and then just try to keep it going for a full 60.”

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