Joe Sacco gets win in his debut as Boston Bruins head coach
BOSTON -- Joe Sacco is undefeated as head coach of the Boston Bruins. In his first game as the man in charge on the Boston bench, Sacco and the Bruins picked up a 1-0 victory over the Utah Hockey Club at TD Garden on Thursday night.
Elias Lindholm scored the only goal of the night with the Bruins on the power play, putting home a rebound with 12:41 left in the second period. It snapped a 17-game goal drought for Boston's big free-agent acquisition, and was all goalie Joonas Korpisalo needed on his way to a 21-save shutout.
While beating an expansion team 1-0 won't cure everything that has plagued the Bruins this season, Thursday night's win snapped a three-game losing streak. Boston was in control for much of the game, and had a number of good scoring chances despite putting just one goal by Utah netminder Karel Vejmelka.
Sacco was obviously pumped to get his first win as B's head coach, but he was much happier that his players were able to halt the team's recent skid.
"[It felt] pretty good, I'm not going to lie to you, obviously," Sacco said of the victory. "To get our guys to get a win, too, was even more important. We feel better about ourselves, and I think how we went about the game tonight was like a business-like approach. I thought that we had a couple of individuals that really brought the energy to our group tonight to lift the bench at certain moments during the game, and just a good effort all around from our guys."
Bruins captain Brad Marchand presented Sacco with the game puck after his first win as Bruins head coach.
Sacco is just the second head coach in Bruins team history to earn a shutout win in his debut. Fred Creighton was the first, debuting with a 4-0 win over Winnipeg in 1979.
Who is Joe Sacco?
The 55-year-old Sacco is no stranger to Boston. The Medford native played at Boston University before he played 13 seasons in the NHL. He transitioned to the bench when his playing days ended and was head coach of the Colorado Avalanche for four seasons, compiling a 130-134-30 record from 2009-13.
Sacco spent 10 seasons as an assistant in Boston under Claude Julien, Bruce Cassidy, and Jim Montgomery. He was elevated to head coach after the team fired Montgomery on Tuesday after a 8-9-3 start to the season. Montgomery led the B's to a 120-41-23 record over his two-plus seasons in Boston.
Sacco said he usually went home between the team's morning skate and their game. But he changed things up for his first game as B's head coach and remained at Warrior Ice Arena before making his way to TD Garden.
"I was just able to just relax and kind of get my thoughts together," he said. "I want to try to enjoy the day too as well as the night, because I knew that this was the first one. And to make sure I remembered it."
Sacco will look to start 2-0 as Bruins head coach when the team visits the Detroit Red Wings on Saturday night.
