Entering Sunday, teams were 4-16-1 in their first game after their bye week. On Sunday the Bruins hoped to change that trend. They did just that.

In what was one of the Black and Gold’s more entertaining contests of the season, the Bruins walked out of San Jose with a 2-1 overtime victory.

With minutes winding down in the extra frame, the Bruins perfectly executed a faceoff win in their own zone, resulting in Brad Marchand’s game-winning goal. After the faceoff victory by Patrice Bergeron, Torey Krug collected the puck and lofted it down the ice for a streaking Marchand where the Bruins’ leading scorer put the game away.

Here is what we learned as the Bruins go to 4-0-0 under interim coach Bruce Cassidy.

No bye week blues:

As mentioned above, NHL teams had just four wins in 20 tries coming out of the bye. We saw it Saturday with Claude Julien’s Montreal Canadiens as to how sluggish teams can be after a week off. The Bruins, however, were a different story.

“I thought we were pretty good. In the first period, guys felt better than they expected,” Torey Krug told the media following the win.

“We did well, we stuck to our game, and then in the second there were some rocky shifts and in the third, we got back to our game. So overall it was obviously, it’s been well documented that teams coming out of the break haven’t been winning, so it’s good to get this one.”

Bruins finally get one in California:

California has not been all too friendly to the Bruins in recent seasons. Entering Sunday, the Bruins had just one win in their last nine contests in California with their last win coming on January 11, 2014. That victory: a 1-0 shutout of the Sharks.

“Yeah, this is a really hard building to win in and they’ve been playing well lately, so with five days off it is not easy to come back here and feel good,” Marchand told reporters following his team leading 25th goal of the season. “But we battled hard and it wasn’t always pretty but we got the two points, that’s all that matters”

Bruins making hockey fun again:

Four games, four wins.

Thanks to Sunday’s victory the Bruins are now on a season-high four-game win streak.

There is no denying the Bruins have been a different team since the firing of Claude Julien. The Bruins have been more up-tempo, their shot selection has been more precise and their defensemen have been more engaged offensively. Overall, the Bruins have been a more exciting team to watch in their last four games.

As exciting as a week off was, the Bruins were more excited to come together as a group once again.

“Yeah, we were excited to get back at it and come together again, it’s always fun to get back it when you have a few days off, gets you excited to play again,” Marchand added. “So we were excited and knew we had to work hard and again we knew it wouldn’t be our best game, but we worked through it.”