Bruins top NHL season points mark, beating Capitals 5-2

BOSTON (AP) — The Boston Bruins saved their best performance for home fans.

The Bruins broke the NHL points record with a 5-2 win over the Washington Capitals in their regular-season home finale on Tuesday night. Brad Marchand and Tyler Bertuzzi scored power-play goals for the Bruins.

TD Garden's fans chanted "We want the Cup!" As they won their seventh straight game to reach 133 points, one more than the Montreal Canadiens of 1976-77. Those Canadiens played in an era without overtime and shootouts. The Bruins have 11 extra points - five for shootout wins and six for overtime wins - unavailable to the Canadiens when they set the record in 1976.

We're happy about it, let's not kid ourselves. But it's a regular-season record," Marchand said. "Playoffs begin and everything changes. 16 teams will have the same goal and what we've done so far doesn't matter."

On Sunday at Philadelphia, the Bruins set the NHL victory record with 63, breaking a tie with the 1995-96 Detroit Red Wings and 2018-19 Tampa Bay Lightning.

It's still significant "because those were dominant teams," Bruins coach Jim Montgomery said of Montreal's 80 wins.

In Boston's 64th victory, Tomas Nosek, Garnet Hathaway, and Jake DeBrusk also scored.

A night after reaching 60 goals in a season for the first time, David Pastrnak posted his 50th and 51st assists. With less than nine minutes left, Linus Ullmark left with "muscle tightening." Marchand and Patrice Bergeron both added to the team's scoring.

In their quest for their first Stanley Cup championship since 2011, the Bruins will have a home-ice advantage throughout the playoffs.

The Capitals were led by Nick Jensen and Tom Wilson, while Charlie Lindgren made 33 saves, including one-handed, gloveless saves on David Pastrnak.

In the third, Wilson narrowed the two-goal deficit to 3-2 before Nosek found Hathaway cutting toward the net for his 13th goal.

A cross-check on Taylor Hall by Matt Irwin gave the Bruins their first power play of the game with 12:24 left in the second.

After less than a minute, Boston scored its 21st goal of the season when Pastrnak gathered a pass from Patrice Bergeron, drew some defenders in the middle of the ice, and flipped it to Marchand at the bottom of the right faceoff circle. On March 9, he scored his last goal, a loss to Edmonton. It was his first goal in 17 games.

Marchand said, "It's one of those things that you almost have to laugh about. It gets frustrating, but then it gets comical. You can't take it too seriously, and I think that's where it ended up. It's not the norm."

Just under seven minutes into the period, Tom Wilson was called for roughing Charlie McAvoy again.

Bertuzzi scored his eighth goal of the season when he rebounded a shot by Pastrnak.

With 4:53 left in the period, Jensen's wrist shot clipped McAvoy and trickled by Ullmark for his fifth goal of the season.

THE WEIGHT OF BOWMAN

On Tuesday, Tampa Bay hosted Toronto with Hall of Fame coach Scotty Bowman in attendance.

Coach for Montreal and Detroit's previous record-setting seasons, the 89-year-old said he doesn't mind if those records are surpassed

Bowman smiled and said, "We still have a part of the record, we got 132 points in 80 games." "I don't mind. I'm glad for him because he made a good comeback. He's got confidence. Their team is good." "I'm old enough to know I don't have all my records, so I'm happy for him if he has them."

Two power-play goals were scored by Boston for the second time this season. It also scored two in a 7-3 win over Florida on Dec. 19. ... Jensen has now scored in five games, a career-high. On Tuesday, Henrik Borgstrom was recalled from the AHL Hershey Bears, becoming the first Finnish player to suit the Capitals in 14 years.

THE NEXT STEP

Thursday night, the host New Jersey.

On Thursday night, the Bruins play at Montreal.