Tim Thomas admitted he felt a little rusty at first. After all, it had been seven games with the Bruins and six Olympic contests that he had served as a back-up.

But aside from a short-side goal off the stick of Viktor Stalberg in the first period, Thomas looked like the Vezina Trophy winner he was last season in helping the Bruins to a 3-2 shootout win over Toronto Thursday night at TD Garden.

“My confidence going into it was pretty good,” Thomas said. “I felt real good in practice. There’s a couple of things that happen in games that you can’t really practice. That put me on my heels a couple of different times. You’ve got to be ready for everything as a goalie, anything that’s thrown your way.”

Thomas stopped Phil Kessel not once, not twice but three times on point-blank chances, including a breakaway in the first and in the shootout.

“At the Olympics, at the end of the practice over the past two weeks, I probably took 400 breakaways after practice and 40 of them were against Phil,” Thomas said. “I didn’t know exactly where he was going to shoot because he can shoot anywhere. I was just trying to do the best I could and I was fortunate enough to be the one that ended up on top today.”

“Outstanding,” raved coach Claude Julien. “For a guy that hadn’t played in a month, for him to come in and do the job he did tonight, we needed him. There’s no doubt. He deserves a lot of credit for this win tonight.”