Bruins vs. Rangers: Fraser Minten Starts a 75-Second Blitz as Jeremy Swayman Blanks New York

For 56 minutes, Jeremy Swayman and Igor Shesterkin turned TD Garden into a goalie clinic. Grade A chance, grade A save, repeat. Then the dam broke all at once, and Boston needed just 75 seconds to turn a scoreless slog into a party.

Fraser Minten scored with 3:46 left, JJ Peterka added a highlight-reel goal 52 seconds later, Mark Kastelic hit the empty net 23 seconds after that, and the Boston Bruins beat the New York Rangers 3-0 on Tuesday night in the season opener for both teams. Swayman made 24 saves for the 19th shutout of his NHL career. Some movies have a slow first act. This one was all slow first act until the final five minutes went full action franchise.

Two Periods of Nothing, in the Best Way

Neither team gave much early. Each side got one power play in the first period, Tanner Jeannot for tripping Alexis Lafrenière at 10:27 and Noah Laba for tripping Hampus Lindholm at 16:56, and neither came close to mattering. Those were the only two penalties all night.

Through 40 minutes, Swayman had 15 saves and Shesterkin had 14, per NHL.com. The Rangers were giving the puck away at an alarming rate, 20 giveaways to Boston's 10 by the end, but Shesterkin kept erasing the damage. The hitting was relentless on both sides, 37 for New York and 36 for Boston, and the building had the feel of a playoff game played in late September.

The third period is where the goalies started playing can-you-top-this. At 9:05, the Rangers produced back-to-back looks and Swayman stopped Pavel Dorofeyev and then J.T. Miller. Less than two minutes later, Shesterkin answered by gloving Casey Mittelstadt's shot on a 2-on-1. Pavel Zacha also rang one off the left post for Boston in the third, per the AP. At that point, overtime felt like the most likely outcome.

The Turning Point: Minten Lets It Rip

At 16:14, Mason Lohrei skated up ice and found Minten in open space. Minten had Marat Khusnutdinov alongside him and considered the pass. He shot instead, and it was 1-0. "I was inside the dots, not a lot of time left, so I just let it rip and thankfully it went in," Minten said. Lohrei got the lone assist, and for the first time all night, Shesterkin looked human.

The Garden had barely caught its breath when Peterka made it 2-0 at 17:06. Peterka slipped the puck through Braden Schneider's legs on the rush and finished before anybody in a Rangers sweater could react, the kind of goal that gets replayed on loop for a week. Elias and Hampus Lindholm got the assists on this one. Swayman, watching from the other end, was a fan. "He's silky. I'm glad he's on our team now. That was a goal-scorer's goal," Swayman said.

With Shesterkin pulled, Kastelic sealed it at 17:29, assisted by Minten and Khusnutdinov. Three goals, 1:15 of game time, ballgame.

Stars of the Night

Jeremy Swayman was perfect on 24 shots. He also gave his counterpart his flowers. "A world-class goalie," Swayman said of Shesterkin. "It's fun to go back and forth with a goalie like that, and it felt like we both had grade A (save) after grade A (save)."

Fraser Minten had a goal and an assist in 14:48 and was plus-2. The AP noted he recently signed a new seven-year deal, and he wasted no time making it look smart.

JJ Peterka scored in his Bruins debut after Boston acquired him from the Utah Mammoth on June 26 for the No. 23 pick in the 2026 NHL Draft and a conditional 2028 first-rounder. He skated on the top line with new captain David Pastrnak and Elias Lindholm. "It was crazy," Peterka said. "They were so loud already when we got introduced, so fired up."

Mark Kastelic scored the empty-netter and added three hits and three blocked shots in 13:07, a lunch-pail stat line if there ever was one.

For New York, Igor Shesterkin made 20 saves on 22 shots and deserved a better fate. Alberts Smits, the 18-year-old taken No. 5 overall in 2026, made his NHL debut and was minus-1 in 16:54.

Stats That Matter

• 1:15: The span of all three Boston goals, from 16:14 to 17:29 of the third.
• 24-23: New York's shot advantage, which did not produce a single goal.
• 20-10: Rangers giveaways versus Bruins giveaways.
• 19: Career NHL shutouts for Swayman after this one.
• 26-26: Faceoffs, dead even, which tells you how tight this was.

What It Means

Boston starts 1-0-0 without Charlie McAvoy, who served the first game of a six-game suspension for slashing Buffalo's Zach Benson in Game 6 of last spring's first-round series, per NHL.com. Will Borgen stepped in and was plus-2 in 17:43 in his Bruins debut after 126 games with the Rangers. The AP noted Boston is coming off a first-round exit against Buffalo in Marco Sturm's first season. Next up is a Friday trip to Winnipeg.

New York opens 0-1-0, and the history here stings. NHL.com noted it is the first time in Rangers history they have been shut out in a season opener in back-to-back years, after a 3-0 loss to Pittsburgh on Oct. 7, 2025. Coach Mike Sullivan also coached his 1,000th NHL game, becoming the third American head coach to reach that mark after John Tortorella and Peter Laviolette. Miller's diagnosis was simple: the Rangers "just gave up a little too much easy offense for the other team. And if you give them enough, they're going to capitalize at some point." The Rangers host Tampa Bay on Thursday.

Closing Take

This was a two-goalie show that ended with a three-goal encore, like a jazz duet that suddenly turns into a drum solo. Shesterkin did not lose this game so much as run out of runway. Miller summed it up before anyone else could. "It's Game 1. If we had won the game I would be saying the same thing," he said. Fair. But in Boston on Tuesday, 75 seconds was all the Bruins needed to make Game 1 feel like a statement.

Stats from the official box score via ESPN. Game details from the Associated Press; postgame quotes and team notes as reported by NHL.com.