BOSTON – Joe Sacco is undefeated as head coach of the Boston Bruins. In his first game in charge of the bench in Boston, Sacco and the Bruins earned a 1-0 victory over the Utah Hockey Club at TD Garden on Thursday evening.

Elias Lindholm scored the Bruins’ only goal of the night on the power play, netting a rebound with 12:41 left in the second period. It snapped a 17-game drought due to Boston’s big free-agent acquisition, and that was all goaltender Joonas Korpisalo needed en route to a 21-save shutout.

While beating an expansion team 1-0 won’t cure everything that has plagued the Bruins this season, Thursday night’s win snapped a three-game losing streak. Boston was in control for most of the game and had some good scoring opportunities, despite only one goal from Utah netminder Karel Vejmelka.

Sacco was clearly excited about his first win as B’s head coach, but he was much happier that his players managed to halt the team’s recent skid.

“(It felt) pretty good, obviously I’m not going to lie to you,” Sacco said of the win. “It was even more important to let our guys win. We feel better about ourselves and I think the way we approached the game tonight was a business-like approach. I thought we had a few individuals that really brought the energy to our group to lift the bench at certain times during the game, and it was just a good effort from our guys.”

Bruins captain Brad Marchand handed Sacco the game puck after his first win as Bruins head coach.

Sacco is only the second head coach in Bruins team history to earn a shutout win in his debut. Fred Creighton was the first, making his debut with a 4-0 win over Winnipeg in 1979.

Who is Joe Sacco?

The 55-year-old Sacco is no stranger to Boston. The Medford native played at Boston University before playing 13 seasons in the NHL. He moved to the bench when his playing days were over and spent four seasons as head coach of the Colorado Avalanche, compiling a 130-134-30 record from 2009-2013.

Sacco spent 10 seasons as an assistant in Boston under Claude Julien, Bruce Cassidy and Jim Montgomery. He was named head coach after the team fired Montgomery on Tuesday following an 8-9-3 start to the season. Montgomery led the B’s to a 120-41-23 record during his two-plus seasons in Boston.

Sacco said he usually went home between the team’s morning skate and their game. But he changed things up for his first game as B’s head coach, staying at Warrior Ice Arena before heading to TD Garden.

“I was able to just relax and collect my thoughts,” he said. “I want to try to enjoy both the day and the night, because I knew it was the first. And to make sure I remembered.”

Sacco will start off 2-0 as head coach of the Bruins when the team visits the Detroit Red Wings on Saturday evening.