Bruins score 3 goals in first period, upend Nashville, 6-2

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Carl Soderberg scored a power-play goal and had two assists, Jarome Iginla added a pair of goals and the Boston Bruins beat the Nashville Predators 6-2 Monday night.

Brad Marchand, Matt Fraser and Reilly Smith also scored for Boston, which gave Coach Claude Julien his 400th career win.

Tuukka Rask made 32 saves for Boston. Craig Smith scored twice for Nashville.

The Bruins scored three goals in the first period.

At the 1:16 mark, Zdeno Chara took a shot from inside the blue line that was deflected into the net by Iginla, who was stationed in front of the goal.

Fraser scored his first goal of the season, beating Predators goalie Carter Hutton on a breakaway with a snap shot into the top right corner of the net at 5:59.

Hutton was replaced by Marek Mazanec after Fraser’s goal.

With 16 seconds left in a power play, Smith took a shot from the lower inside edge of the left circle that went over Mazanec’s shoulder into the top right side of the net with 9:13 left in the first period.

The Predators broke the shutout at 11:35 of the second period when Smith skated in from the right side to put the rebound of Seth Jones’ shot past Rask.

Smith struck again at 3:25 of the third period by firing a wrist shot through traffic to beat Rask low to his stick side.

The Bruins came back to add two power-play goals in less than 50 seconds.

Iginla scored at 5:07 on a tip-in and Soderberg beat Mazanec low to his stick side from a few feet in front of the crease at 5:51 with a snap shot.

With 4:06 left in the game, Marchand beat Mazanec from close range.

NOTES: Left wing Daniel Paille, out with a concussion since playing against Toronto on Dec. 8, skated in a full practice for the first time Sunday, but he did not make the trip to Nashville.

“I still haven’t been cleared yet, so I’m going to do the testing right now,” Paille said. “When that goes through, I’ll be able to travel with the team, but until then they thought it was best to stay here.”

Paille said that he first experienced neck pain before he started feeling lousy on the trip from Toronto to Calgary.

“It was diagnosed (as a concussion). It was very mild, very light,” he said. “On the travel, I was getting some headaches and some symptoms and I thought it was the flu. I just kind of let it go. As soon as we practiced in Calgary, I didn’t feel too well.”

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