BOSTON – With six games to go in the regular season, the Boston Bruins have seized first place in the Atlantic Division -- and the Eastern Conference.
Buoyed by a strong opening period where they scored a couple of goals, the Bruins never looked back and instead made a big statement to the Tampa Bay Lightning in an intense 4-2 win at TD Garden on Thursday night. Now the B’s sit a point ahead of Tampa Bay in the standings with a game in hand, and one more showdown in Tampa prior to the postseason getting started in a few weeks.
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The Bruins once again never trailed against the Lightning, and ended a dominant first period where they outshot Tampa Bay by a 16-5 margin with a couple of goals late in the period. Tim Schaller scored on the rebound of a Tommy Wingels rebounded shot as he literally crashed the net and knocked it off its moorings after pushing the puck past Andrei Vasilevskiy.
Thirty-two seconds later David Pastrnak had a power play strike just four seconds into the PP possession as his shot went off Ryan McDonagh’s stick on its way to the net. Tampa Bay came back to make a game of it, of course, and JT Miller scored a power play goal in the second period to halve Boston’s lead going into the final 20 minutes. That wasn’t the most eventful moment of the middle 20 minutes, however. It was clearly Tuukka Rask throwing punches at Corey Conacher in a team-wide tussle after the little Tampa forward wouldn’t leave his crease.
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The Bruins extended the lead in the third period on a sweet shift from Patrice Bergeron and Brad Marchand during 4-on-4 play where they cycled Tampa Bay into oblivion, and then Torey Krug fed Bergeron on the backdoor for his 28th goal of the season. The Lightning got one back on a soft goal allowed by Tuukka Rask as a perimeter Victor Hedman shot somehow trickled through the B’s goalie’s equipment, but Rask and the Bruins held on strong for the win in a big statement game.
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Brad Marchand added the empty netter to clinch things, and then waved his arms like a boxing referee after a knockout yelling the words “It’s over!” to the plummeting Lightning.
