With two of the best players on the planet in Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin, the Penguins came to TD Garden for a “Wednesday Night Rivalry” game on NBCSN. Mired in fifth place in the Metropolitan Division with 33 points and without two key players in goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury and standout defenseman Kris Letang, Pittsburgh had 10 losses in their last 16 games.

Boston, quite the opposite with at least one point in nine or their last 10 games, 16-9-4 overall (36 points) and a decided edge over the Penguins of late at 4-0-1 in their last five meetings.

The nationally televised game featured the return of former Bruins’ coach Mike Sullivan as Pittsburgh’s new bench boss.

With the Sullivan hype and a few marbles on the line for Boston, here’s what we learned from the Bruins’ methodical 3-0 win. The teams meet again Friday night in Pittsburgh.

Sullivan takes the reins behind a fragile Pittsburgh bench

He’s 47 now — some 12 years removed from June 25, 2003 — when the Bruins tabbed him its 25th head coach at the tender age of 35.

Last week, Mike Sullivan rode the back routes of the AHL as bench boss of the ‘Pens American Hockey League Wilkes-Barre/Scranton, while his team rode an 18-5 record, good for first place in the AHL Atlantic Division. That type of performance once helped Sullivan in Boston. In 2002-03, he led the AHL Providence Bruins to a 41-17-9-4 mark.

Last Friday, there must have been some of that same karma in Pittsburgh when Penguins GM Jim Rutherford ushered head coach Mike Johnston out one door – and opened another for Sullivan’s first NHL head coach position since his days in Boston where he went 41-19-15-7 his first season, winning a division title.

Sullivan was 70-56-31 in two seasons from 2003-2005 behind the Boston bench before a long run as an NHL assistant from 2007-14 with Tampa Bay, the Rangers and Vancouver. The Marshfield, Mass. native played fours years at Boston University.

Monday was Sullivan’s debut behind the Pittsburgh pine – a 4-1 loss.

“I know I’m still a little wet behind the ears so to speak when it comes to the coaching ranks and the number of hats you have to wear,” Sullivan told yours truly back in 2003, “but you have to work through the problems to build a winning team.”

The Penguins, hailed as one of the NHL’s elite since Sullivan’s tenure on Causeway Street, reportedly are working through their own on and off-ice issues to rebuild their customary winning team.

“I think the most important thing is the mindset,” Sullivan told Bruins Daily Wednesday night about his biggest challenge in the new role. “It’s the mindset that we are in that we have got to become a resilient group. We’ve got to find solutions; we can’t look for any sort of excuses. The answers are in the room, we’ve got to find them, and we have to work together to work our way out of this. So that’s the message that I am going to bring to our team. We are in this thing together, and we are going to figure this out.”

“Until we find a way to be more consistent and producing more then I think we’ll start to build that,” summed Crosby. “That’s something that a team builds over the course of the year and we have got to find a way to get that.”

Bruins finally reach .500 at TD Garden

After losing in overtime Monday night against Edmonton, the Bruins were once again looking to get over a necessary hump: a .500 record on home ice. Hard to fathom, but with an impressive 10-2-2 road slate, the home tally was a woeful 6-7-2.

Now at 7-7-2, the Black and Gold can add some space within that stat with six of the next seven at TD Garden.

“We want to make this a tough place to play,” Jimmy Hayes said about getting to .500. “Especially for a lot of those other teams coming in here making sure they know they’re going to be playing against the Bruins here tonight, and it’s not going to be an easy game.

Talbot gets Boston on the move

The Bruins’ power play went to work eight minutes into the first period. Just as it expired, Max Talbot fired a top-shelf laser short side on Penguins’ backup Jeff Zatkoff for his first goal of the game; Adam McQuaid and Hayes assisting.

No stranger to those aforementioned AHL bus rides, Talbot has also been on a two-way ride up and down Rt. 95 all season between Boston and Providence. Wednesday night was the 11th game with the varsity for the 31-year-old journeyman who played his first six years with the Penguins — and won a Cup in 2009, scoring both goals in 2-1 final in Detroit in the deciding Game 7.

“I know it’s my first as a Bruin,” an elated Talbot said postgame, “so I’m pretty proud of that. Hopefully I can be a little light on my feet and keep doing some good things out there.”

Hayes scores without touching the puck

At 4:00 of the second period, Hayes scored his fifth goal of the season – without touching the puck. Ryan Spooner and Hayes broke in 2-on-1. Spooner dished a pass across the crease that caromed off Ian Cole’s skate and past Zatkoff. After a Mike Sullivan challenge for goaltender interference, the referee ruled otherwise while Hayes got credit for the goal – never touching the puck or Zatkoff – giving Boston a two-goal lead.

“I heard them say it was goalie interference,” Hayes offered. “I was like pretty sure I didn’t get anything near him.”

“Jimmy’s going to have success by going to the net like he did tonight,” Claude Julien summed about Hayes’ play. “We don’t expect him to be carrying the puck up and down the ice, but in those tight areas he can be a good player.”

Boston brought a 13-2-1 record into Wednesday night when leading by two goals.

Rask stays red hot

“In my time here that we’ve had some great goaltenders come through,” Julien said about his stellar netminder. “[Tuukka’s] a guy that when he’s on his game he’s one of the best. He’s feeling it in the last little while or whatever, last month, maybe even more. But he’s been the goalie that we all know he can be. And that’s how we felt about him at the beginning even though he struggled, we knew he’d find his game, and he has.”

Rask faced 33 Pittsburgh shots en route to his fourth shutout of the season. The “Rask return” can be labeled as complete. He is now 7-0-2 in his last nine appearances with a 1.36 GAA. He has allowed one goal in his last two games with a nine-game point streak and four shutouts on the season as his overall GAA slowly points to 2.00.

No shortage of former Eagles and Terriers in the Garden

Boston College and Boston University were well-represented Wednesday night. In addition to Hayes, Pittsburgh sported two Eagle alums in defensemen Ben Lovejoy and Brian Dumoulin; Terrier alums included defenseman – and former Bruin – David Warsofsky and forward Nick Bonino.

The Kessel log

Phil Kessel is in year one of a five-year 42-million dollar contract in Pittsburgh – $10 million for 2015-16. In 29 games, he has nine goals and nine assists for 18 points and a minus-one. One comparison: Ryan Spooner is 8-10-18 in 29 games with a minus-3. He is in the first year of a two-year deal at $800,000 this year and $1.1 million next season. Spooner scored Boston’s third goal at 17:17 of the third period to seal the win.

“We’re not trying to win 4-3 or 5-4,” Rask said. “We’re just kind of being patient and getting our chances and capitalizing on those, but defensively we’re getting so much better. We take pride in that and we finally understood that that’s what our bread and butter is and has given us success a lot.”

“You always want to get off to a good start when you’re playing those back-to-backs,” Julien said after. “Again, as you often hear coaches say, ‘Let’s park this one and let’s move on to the next.’”

That’s Friday in Pittsburgh.