The first game back home after a reasonably productive road trip – especially an afternoon game with no practice in between – is usually a recipe for some scheduled egg-laying.

The Bruins, however, showed up on Monday with professional, workmanlike effort and dispatched an undermanned New Jersey Devils team, 3-0, at the Garden.

With the Devils playing without star Jack Hughes, among others, the B’s overcame a strong performance from Jersey goalie Nico Daws and Jeremy Swayman (31 saves) posted his third shutout of the season to nail down the win.

The Bruins did everything in the first period but score, although they thought they did once. They outshot the Devils 16-9, and had six high danger chances. The best of those came off the stick of Brad Marchand on a backdoor one-timer, but Daws somehow got over in time to get his glove on the shot.

The Devils took the only two penalties of the first period, which gave the B’s a 15-second 5-on-3. On the second 5-on-4, it looked like James van Riemsdyk had solved Daws with a nifty spin move to his forehand to roof it at 7:37. But Jersey challenged for offside and the video revealed that David Pastrnak was a fraction f a second ahead of Marchand’s zone entry 10 seconds before the goal.

But before the B’s started t wonder of they’d ever beat Daws, they broke the ice 30 seconds into the second period. Pastrnak and Marchand looked like they might have an odd-man rush, but Pastrnak’s pass at the blue line was a little behind Marchand and he had to curl up just inside blue line. From there, he spotted the trailer Charlie Coyle steaming for the net and gave it to him. Coyle took it down low and beat Daws shortside with a backhander over the blocker for his 15th of the year.

On cue, the that woke up the Devils a bit and they started spending more time in the Boston zone, forcing Jeremy Swayman to face some shots. The Devils outshot the B’s 10-9 in the second and Swayman was forced to make a tough save on Nathan Bastian at the doorstep late in the period, but the goalie kept the Devils off the board through 40 minutes.

The B’s finally made a little space between themselves and the Devisl at 3:22 of the third period on the power play. Charlie McAvoy had a partial breakaway on which he it the post, but he was hacked by Max Willman.

On the advantage, Pastrnak whistled a one-timer off a McAvoy feed past Daws for the 2-0 lead and Pastrnak’s 26th of the season.

Trent Frederic put the finishing touches on the win when he sprinted for a loose puck and dove to poke it into the empty net with his 13th of the year.