BOSTON — On a night on which they could have been forgiven for a little bit of sluggishness, the Bruins delivered a thorough, balanced beatdown of the Nashville Predators at TD Garden, 6-0, on Thursday.

The B’s got goals from five different goalscorers, including one from a member of each of the four lines, and the first NHL shutout from Michael DiPietro (28 saves) to extend their point streak to seven games (6-0-1).

The big boys stepped up. Both David Pastrnak (2-2-4) and Charlie McAvoy (0-3-3) had four-point nights while 10 skaters registered points.

The Predators are not a great team, or at least they are not off to a great start (3-3-3), but games like this are unpredictable.

One of the time-tested truisms of the long NHL season is that the first game back home after a long, successful road trip is going to be a struggle for the hosts, especially if the trip included time zone changes.

But after the B’s captured seven of a possible eight points on their western swing, showed up a the Garden on Thursday ready to play. They got on the board at 3:49 of the first.

Charlie McAvoy mucked up a Nashville zone entry attempt and got it up to David Pastrnak. The captain was surrounded by three Predators on the right wing but he zipped a cross-ice pass to a changing-on Casey Mittelstadt, who beat Nashville goalie Justus Annunen with a wrist shot from the top of the left circle.

The B’s had most of the quality chances in the first period, but they weren’t able to extend the lead until Nicolas Hague held David Pastrnak behind net, putting the B’s on the power play at 16:38. The PP would not have another 0-fer like that had in Dallas on Tuesday, when they were 0-for-4 on the PP. Just 15 seconds after Hague took a seat, Elias Lindholm was left all alone in front of the net where he deflected home a McAvoy shot for his fourth of the season.

The B’s held a 12-8 shot advantage in the first and DiPietro, getting his third start of the season, kept the Preds off the board in the opening 20.

DiPietro was not tested much in the first, but his job got more difficult in the second. He had to make pair of saves on Nils Hoglander in rapid succession. Then the B’s had a breakdown in the neutral zone that led to a clean break-in for Mavrik Bourque. DiPietro stopped that and then the rebound shot from Alexander Kerfoot.

With Nashville threatening to make a game of it, the B’s turn the gas back on and made it 3-0 at 9:48. McAvoy picked up his third helper of the net when he fired a hard wrister that Pastrnak tipped home for his fifth of the season.

The B’s then put the game to bed at 17:25 of the second. After McAvoy landed a thunderous check on Jack Drury in the defensive zone, the B’s broke out the other way. From the right wing, Pastrnak sent a perfect slap pass to JJ Peterka streaking toward the net. Peterka’s initial redirection went off the post, but it came right back to Peterka, who put it home for his fourth.

At that point, the only thing in question was whether DiPietro would get his first NHL shutout.

At 6:50, Mark Kastelic made it 5-0 on a gift. Matt Poitras dumped the puck in and it took a perfect bounce of the end boards straight back out front, where Kastelic was there to beat Annunen with a backhander.

Pastrnak added a second goal late to complete the scoring, but the Preds were long since finished.

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