It was an interesting 48 hours for Noel Acciari. He went from a puck to the mouth on Tuesday, to extensive mouth surgery Wednesday, to scoring a key goal against the league’s best team on Thursday.

When arriving to the rink Thursday morning, head coach Bruce Cassidy wasn’t entirely sure he would be ready to go Thursday night, but there was no way Acciari was missing this one.

“He wants to play in these games,” said Cassidy. “He’s valuable in these types of games. We need him to be a hard guy to play against when they have that much skill, so he came through for us tonight.”

Acciari was a difference maker in Thursday’s 4-1 victory over the Tampa Bay Lightning in what was playoff like atmosphere at TD Garden. A game that saw the Bruins hand the Lightning their lone regulation loss of February, and one that snapped Tampa Bay’s 10-game winning streak.

In 14:04 of ice time, the 27-year old Acciari had a goal, —that served as the game winner—an assist, a team-high five hits and four shots on goal. The two-point performance was the first of Acciari’s career.

“We checked on him yesterday. The dentist thought he’d have a chance to play, didn’t really rate, and Noel we knew if he was fine there was no doubt he's going to play,” added Cassidy. “He’s got the magic bubble on that seems to work for our players. All of a sudden instant offense, so we’ll see if we can find a few more of those.”

Taking a Brent Burns shot to any part of the body can’t feel good. So you can only imagine what was going through Acciari’s head as his mouth filled with blood, following the puck to his mouth.

“Was just hoping it wasn’t my jaw again,” said Accari who once previously broke his jaw. “But, you know, things happen, it’s a quick game and things like that happen all the time, so I just have to get past it and yeah, that’s about it.”

Acciari got lucky you can say, only losing two teeth and suffering minor cuts on both his top and bottom lips. At some point Acciari will need to go in for more dental work he said.

Acciari and his line got the start against the Lightning’s third line, and from the drop of the puck, the line was buzzing. In a game where the Bruins had a pretty balanced attack, the Bruins fourth line—if you want to call it that—brought it’s A game all night.

“Coach has got a lot of confidence in us to get us out to a good start, and we just try to get the puck in deep and just kind of go to work like the line we are,” said Acciari. “We’re strong on pucks and that’s what we try to think of every night.”

As Acciari mentioned, Cassidy has shown a ton of confidence in the trio as he’s not hesitant to throw the three out there against any line.

“They’re a fast team, and we knew we had to play fast with them and limit our turnovers,” said Acciari. “We just kept that in mind and just made sure we got the puck to the net and get some good scoring chances.”

The chances were aplenty for the trio, with Acciari finally cashing in on one.

After Sean Kuraly left the game after taking a big hit in the offensive zone, Joakim Nordstrom was bumped down to the line. Nordstrom’s aggressive forecheck led to Acciari forcing a Nikita Kucherov turnover. The loose puck found the stick of Chris Wanger, and it was off his rebound, Acciari was able to beat Lightning goalie Louis Domingue--who was an absolute monster in the loss.

“I just picked the puck up off the wall, and gave it to Wags [Wagner] and Wags had a great shot low pad and it just happened to bounce right in front of me and I was able to tap it in,” said Acciari.

Acciari’s assist on Patrice Bergeron's 22nd goal of the season came just 45 seconds later, a play once again that was created by Acciari forcing a turnover, this time off the stick of Braden Point.

After suffering a nose injury earlier this season, Kuraly was forced to wear the same shield as Acciari, or the bubble as the Bruins are calling it. In his time with the bubble, Kuraly had five goals and five assists.

The bubble is working and the guys around the room are noticing it.

“It was a huge goal by Noel,” said Jake DeBrusk who opened the scoring with his 21st of the season. “That bubble is working for everybody who has it, I might need one of those.”

With seven goals in his last eight games, I don’t think DeBrusk needs to change anything up.

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