BOSTON (AP) — Paval Zacha scored twice, Joonas Korpisalo made 37 saves and the Boston Bruins beat the St. Louis Blues 5-2 on Thursday night.

Morgan Geekie had goal and two assists. Viktor Arvidsson and Alex Steeves also scored, and Elias Lindholm assisted on Boston’s first two goals.

Pavel Buchnevich and Dylan Holloway scored for St. Louis. The Blues have dropped eight of their past 11 games.

Jordan Binnington made 22 saves in the building where he backstopped St. Louis to a Game 7 win over Boston in the 2019 Stanley Cup Finals.

The Bruins took a 2-0 lead in the first period. Coming off a two-goal game in Boston’s 5-4 loss to Detroit on Tuesday night, Steeves took a cross-ice feed from Geekie and buried a one-timer. Geekie netted his 21st goal with 6:30 left, finishing a point-blank opportunity in front of Binnington.

Boston had a 5-1 advantage after two periods. St. Louis cut the deficit in half during the opening minutes when Buchnevich beat Korpisalo from the left circle. The Bruins responded behind goals from Arvidsson and Zacha, whose shot from the high slot gave Boston a three-goal lead with 7:34 remaining in the middle period. Zacha’s second goal of the game came on the power play and with two-tenths of a second left in the second period.

Behind the bench for St. Louis was former Boston coach Jim Montgomery, who was fired 20 games into the 2024-25 season. The Blues hired Montgomery days after he was let go by the Bruins In his two full seasons with Boston, Montgomery led Boston to two playoff appearances and the 2023 President’s Trophy, which goes to the NHL team with the best regular-season record.

The Bruins were without leading scorer David Pastrnak, who missed his fourth straight game.

Up next

Blues: At Ottawa on Saturday night.

Bruins: Host New Jersey on Saturday night.

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AP NHL: https://apnews.com/hub/nhl