More often than not, anytime you score five times in the National Hockey League, you’re going to walk away with two points. Unfortunately for the Bruins, that was not the case Saturday night at TD Garden as they dropped a wild contest 6-5 to the Toronto Maple Leafs.

Five days later, this time with the San Jose Sharks in town and a new head coach behind the bench, the Bruins offense was at it again. This time the Bruins got six goals and a better fate.

In the first game of the Bruce Cassidy era, the Bruins tied a season high with six goals en route to an impressive 6-3 victory. The win was exactly how Cassidy wanted to kick things off.

“Yeah, I mean, I feel great. It’s been a busy two or three days, so I’ll tell you this, I’m going to sleep well tonight but tomorrow’s a new day, we’ll get back to work, and see if we can build on this one. But I mean, yeah, who doesn’t enjoy a win?” Cassidy told the media following Thursdays contest.

With Cassidy at the helm, there were some noticeable differences in the Bruins game Thursday night. They were much quicker getting the puck out of the zone, their defensemen were more involved offensively and their shot selection was much better.

For the majority of the season, the Bruins shot attempts would be weak and from low scoring areas. Sure, getting pucks to the net is always a great thing, but there are better ways to do it than the ways the Bruins have been attempting shots all season.

The Bruins attempted 50 shots Thursday night, 33 of those landed on net.

“Yeah, I think the past few practices; we’ve really worked on getting pucks to the net. I think we need to realize not everything’s going to be pretty, so if we just get pucks on net, put it off the pad, good things will happen if we go to the net,” said Tim Schaller who snapped a 12-game scoring drought with his second period tally.

“So, like I said, it doesn’t have to be pretty. You don’t have to pick corners every time. We know we have the skilled guys that do that, but other than that, just pucks to the net, and like I said, good things will happen.”

With Cassidy now calling the shots, the Bruins lines looked a little different. Those changes paid off for the Black and Gold both five-on-five and on the power play.

David Backes was moved up to the first line, skating alongside Patrice Bergeron and Brad Marchand. Backes got the Bruins on the board just 52 seconds into the game, his 12th goal of the season and first in 12 games.

“You jump on the ice and all of the sudden; you’re in the slot with the puck rolling at you. Those are the ones you dream about. I was able to put that in and the rest of the game started to slow down for me,” added Backes. “I stopped squeezing my stick into a bunch of shrapnel out there and able to capitalize.”

David Pastrnak is now tied for the team lead in goals (along with Brad Marchand) with 24. (Photo by Angela Spagna, Bruins Daily)

The Bruins power play unit of Bergeron, Marchand, Ryan Spooner, David Pastrnak and Torey Krug was phenomenal. From their puck movement to their scoring chances to their two power play tallies — both by Pastrnak — the top PP unit was clicking on all cylinders.

“Well, they’re really finding their chemistry and they – Bergy is a guy that wants to work on all the little – so, that play to Pastrnak was not by accident,” Cassidy said of his top power play unit. ”They’ve been, we’ve been working on that, where it goes into the bumper and instead of going up top to Krug it goes across to Bergy as he kind of fakes and slides it over.”

As dominate as the Bruins top line was, their fourth line was equally as good. The trio of Schaller, Riley Nash and Dominc Moore pushed the tempo and carried heavy play into the San Jose defensive zone. The line’s hard work paid off on the Bruins fourth goal of the evening. Matched up against San Jose’s top line, Schaller got himself to the dirty area and capitalized on the second chance that was created by Nash’s point shot.

“Yeah, it was great. I really like playing with those guys” Schaller said of his linemates. “As you can see, Dom [Moore], he’s always tipping the puck, and he made a nice play to Nasher [Nash], who’s got good hands in the slot there and put one to the net, and I was able to put the rebound home.”

The Bruins will look to carry Thursday’s momentum into the weekend where they host the Vancouver Canucks and Montreal Canadiens on back-to-back days.