The Boston Bruins won their home opener in thrilling fashion Thursday night, thanks to an epic stretch of overtime from backup goaltender Joonas Korpisalo. 

Korpisalo stopped 21 of the 24 shots the visiting Chicago Blackhawks sent his way, which included a pair of overtime saves that had his Boston teammates nearly speechless after the team's 4-3 victory.

Less than a minute into the extra frame and with the Blackhawks in the Boston zone, Chicago defenseman Sam Rinzel made an excellent feed to forward Frank Nazar in front of the net. Nazar had the left side of the net wide open and a clear window to a game-winner, but Korpisalo sprawled out to deny the bid with his stick and keep the game going.

While the save will be on highlight reels for the rest of the season, Korpisalo was humble about his Nazar robbery after Thursday's win.

"Well, I misplayed it so that's why I had to lunge over and just try to get something in front of the puck and hit the stick," he said.

Despite being in awe of Korpisalo's game-saving effort, the Boston offense got a rush off the Nazar rejection. But David Pastrnak's game-winning attempt was turned away, and quickly became another Chicago rush toward Korpisalo.

No worries. The netminder was ready again and turned away Connor Bedard's wrister off the breakaway, which sent the TD Garden into hysterics.

Korpisalo's two saves had the TD Garden buzzing the rest of overtime, though it didn't last much longer. Riding off the momentum of Korpisalo's strong play in net, Fraser Minten put home the game-winner just over a minute later, sending Boston to a 4-3 victory and a 2-0-0 start to the season.

Head coach Marco Sturm gave Korpisalo full credit for Thursday night's win.

"We had no business coming out the winner in OT," said Sturm. "But we did because of him."

Bruins react to Korpisalo's overtime saves

Korpisalo gave plenty of praise to Boston's blue liners after the win, whom he noted were on the second leg of a back-to-back but gave a full effort for 60-plus minutes. But the goalie's teammates only wanted to talk about his saves following the victory. 

"That was probably the best save I've ever seen in person," forward Casey Mittelstadt said of Korpisalo's stick save on Nazar. "If he doesn't make the save there, it's over and we're having a different conversation."

"I think everyone stood up in the whole rink and the one save with the paddle there was one of the best I've ever seen," said Elias Lindholm. "It's huge. Obviously when stuff like that happened, you obviously want to win the game for him and we did."

Bruins forward Tanner Jeannot agreed that the stick save was one of the best he's ever seen.

"That was just insane," said Jeannot.

Minten said he wouldn't have gotten a chance to score the game-winner without Korpisalo standing on his head in net.

"Unbelievable. He was the game-saver, twice," said Minten. "Unreal game by him. He's a great player."

The Bruins have now gotten back-to-back strong efforts in net to start the season. Korpisalo's win Thursday came off the heels of Jeremy Swayman's 35-save effort in a 3-1 win over the Capitals in Washington on Wednesday.

It's important for the Bruins to stack wins early in the season, and Sturm has really liked what he's seen from his team over the first two nights of the season.

"Those kinds of wins are important for us," Sturm said of Boston's win over Chicago. "Our body language is important. Our having life on the bench, feeding off the crowd is important. That's what I remember about the Boston Bruins, and that's what we need now."

The Bruins are back at it on their home ice Saturday night when they host the Buffalo Sabres at 7 p.m.