BOSTON – The Bruins didn’t do much to deserve to win on Monday afternoon, and lo and behold they didn’t when it was all said and done.
The slow-starting B’s did enough to get it to overtime and make it 13 straight games with a point, but they eventually fell by a 3-2 overtime score to the Dallas Stars at TD Garden in an MLK Day matinee. Tyler Seguin got the game-winner with David Pastrnak, Matt Grzelcyk and Ryan Spooner stranded on the ice during 3-on-3 overtime during a delayed penalty call. Seguin knifed through the exhausted trio as they dove to try and stop him, and then faked out Anton Khudobin after he quickly went into a double-stacked pad save attempt.
It was a sluggish start for the Bruins as they started off the game getting outshot by a 9-1 margin, and fell behind by a couple of goals to Dallas in the second period. Stephen Johns snapped a rocket past Anton Khudobin during a transition attack by the Stars, and then five minutes later Alex Radulov scored on the rebound of a Jamie Benn bid with Boston’s top line on the ice.
Patrice Bergeron lost the draw and it was only the second even strength goal scored against the Brad Marchand-Bergeron-David Pastrnak Perfection Line this season.
The Bruins fought back after that, however, getting awoken from their second period malaise by a Zdeno Chara bomb from the left point. Chara powered it past Kari Lehtonen to get the Black and Gold on the board, and to get things set up for a dramatic third period. In the final 20 minutes the Bruins got a goal from Ryan Spooner through a Jake DeBrusk screen to tie things up and force Boston into the extra session for the second game in a row.