Having been on the losing end of his last three starts, Bruins backup Jonas Gustavsson was hoping to give his team a lift against the New Jersey Devils. Down the other end of the ice was Cory Schneider, a Marblehead native and three-year starter at Boston College, who made some incredible saves on the Black and Gold during the third period and overtime.

Like Schneider, Gustavsson stood on his head and matched the former Vancouver Canuck with a solid performance of his own. Because of their performances, the Bruins and Devils was decided on a shootout as Schneider made 38 saves, while Gustavsson stopped 29. The goaltending duel was front and center during the extra session as Schneider’s highlight reel saves on Brad Marchand and Frank Vatrano (on a breakaway) were matched by Gustavsson denying Travis Zajac on a 2-on-1 and Mike Cammalleri at the end of OT.

Gustavsson and the Bruins had the last laugh, though, as Ryan Spooner scored the only goal in the shootout en route to the 2-1 victory. The win pulls the Bruins within one point of the Atlantic Division-leading Montreal Canadiens.

“You got to give credit to both goaltenders. They made some unbelievable saves to keep this a low-scoring game,” head coach Claude Julien said about the goaltending clinic during his postgame press conference.

“You know, Gus [Gustavsson] played extremely well. He made some big saves when we needed them, whether it was in the shootout or overtime where we had that little [2-on-1] breakdown, but he played well. I keep saying over and over again that when a goaltender can give you games like that, it just makes your team that much better.”

“You’re always trying to play good no matter what,” Gustavsson said about snapping overcoming his three-game slump. “So that’s how I approach every game no matter what the situation is. You’re trying to help the team win a game – same thing tonight.”

Jonas Gustavsson and the Bruins got the last laugh in a goaltenders duel with Cory Schneider and the Devils. (Photo by Joe Makarski, Bruins Daily)

Prior to Sunday’s win, Gustavsson was on the losing end of two of his last three starts. In that span, he got yanked for the first time in 2015-16 after allowing three goals on 11 shots against the Flames in Calgary.

The Bruins made things a little difficult for their goalie when they went nearly 15 minutes from the midway mark of the first to the early second period without tallying a shot on goal and only tallied four shots during the first 20 minutes of play. Gustavsson, however, stood tall and gave his team a chance after stopping 20 of 21 shots through the first two periods.

When it was Schneider’s turn, the Devils netminder did the same as he made 35 of his 38 saves between the second period and overtime.

“I think that was pretty much the whole game. They’re both making really big saves,” Landon Ferraro said. “You know, Gus did a really good job tonight and kept us in it when we weren’t really playing our best in the first two periods. And then Schneider, what he did was unbelievable. He made some great saves in the 4-on-3 [power play to start overtime] and just after that Frankie’s [Vatrano] breakaway. They were both at their best and it was exciting to watch.”

“Cory was excellent for us, you know, when they had pushes he was able to come up with some big saves and I think as the game wore on, you know, we battled really hard,” Devils coach John Hynes said about his goaltender. “And when we had a couple breakdowns they had a really good push there late in the third; Cory was excellent and obviously you saw what both goaltenders did in overtime.”

Here are some other things we learned from the Bruins’ shootout win on Sunday.

Talbot gets the call in the shootout

This week has been full of unusual decisions for Julien. To start the weekly slate, Julien sent Ferraro, Spooner and Torey Krug in the 3-on-3 overtime against the Oilers. That didn’t turn out well as the B’s didn’t possess the puck and Andrej Sekera scored the game-winner for Edmonton just 41 seconds into the extra session.

On Sunday, another one of Julien’s decisions came into question when he sent Max Talbot out for the second round of the shootout. It may have been surprising to the 17,565 in attendance at TD Garden, but it’s safe to say that Talbot was one of those people who was surprised.

“Not so much. We practice it, and I’ve been feeling pretty confident in practice with it, and the guys they’ve been scouting,” said Talbot, who was denied by Schneider on his shootout attempt. “It’s frustrating that I didn’t score a goal, but it’s less frustrating when the team wins.”

Bruins knocking on Habs door

The Canadiens entered the season as one of the favorites to win the Atlantic Division — and Eastern Conference — and it looked that they would be proving people right after winning a franchise-record nine straight games to start the season.

What a difference two months make. After starting 0-3, the Bruins have gone 19-6-4 since then and are now within one point of the first place Habs, who are dealing with injuries to last year’s Vezina Trophy winner Carey Price and Brendan Gallagher.

To say that very few people expected the Black and Gold to be within striking distance of overtaking their division leading archrivals before their Winter Classic showdown would be an understatement.

“Yeah I mean ten games into the season you wouldn’t expect that many games later we would be right back there. So it’s obviously nice but anything can happen,” David Krejci said. “There’s still 50 games left, so you have to take it game by game, and we’ll see what happens.”