Bruins match NHL wins record, beat Devils, 2-1 for 62nd victory

BOSTON — The elite 62-win club now has a third team.

In a possible Eastern Conference championship preview, the Bruins held off the New Jersey Devils, 2-1, Saturday at TD Garden.

The Bruins improved to 62-12-5 tying them with the 1995-96 Detroit Red Wings (62-13-7), and the 2018-19 Tampa Bay Lightning (62-16-4) for the most wins in a single season.

The Devils missed a chance to take over first place in the Metropolitan Division.

The Bruins have three regular season games remaining beginning with Sunday at 6 p.m. at Philadelphia.

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Pavel Zacha continued to play well against his former team. He scored the game’s first goal on the power play. Screening Mackenzie Blackwood off the right post, he showed some nifty eye-hand coordination to redirect Hampus Lindholm’s shot by the goalie to make it 1-0, exactly two minutes into the game.

He made it 2-0, less than 3 minutes later. Breaking into the zone, David Pastrnak’s off-balance shot caromed hard off the boards behind the net. Zacha had to hurry to get his backhander off before defenseman Kevin Bahl reached him, but the hustle paid off as it hit Blackwood’s stick and pinballed through the goalie’s legs to make it 2-0, 4:44 into the game.

It looked like the game might be high scoring early. Jesper Brett beat Linus Ullmark, 1:37 after Zacha’s second to make it 2-1 before the game settled down.

David Pastrnak missed a chance to help his quest to reach 60 goals when Blackwood denied his bid for his 58th with 14:24 left in the second period.

Ullmark made 29 saves for Boston, while Blackwood stopped 38 shots for Jersey.