Tuukka Rask had 23 saves while picking up his third shutout of the season and Torey Krug had three assists to lead the Boston Bruins to a 3-0 victory over the Tampa Bay Lightning in a battle of the Atlantic Division's top two teams on Saturday night at Amalie Arena in Tampa, Fla.

It was the 41st career shutout for Rask and marked the first time this season that Tampa Bay (48-19-4, 100 points) was shut out. David Pastrnak, David Backes and Riley Nash each scored goals for the Bruins (45-17-8, 98), who moved within two points of the first place Lightning with a game in hand. It also was the fifth time that Rask shut out Tampa Bay in his career.

Andrei Vasilevskiy had 24 saves for the Lightning, who dropped their second consecutive game.

Boston, coming in off a 3-0 blanking at Florida on Thursday, scored two goals in the first 10:54 to take a 2-0 first-period lead. Pastrnak started the scoring when he took a pass from Krug while cutting in front of the net and backhanded a shot just inside the right skate of Vasilevskiy for his 28th goal of the season.

Backes followed with a rebound of a Krug shot which caromed off the back boards and straight in front of the net.

The Bruins scored their second power play goal of the night at 12:33 of the second period when Riley Nash put in a rebound in front of the net for his 14th goal of the season.

Backes left the game with 21.2 seconds left in the first period after suffering a laceration above his right knee from the skate of Yanni Gourde during a goalmouth scrum and didn't return. The team tweeted the injury required "several stitches" and that Backes was "resting and would not return."

--Field Level Media