NHL Update: Boston Bruins beat Dallas Stars, 6-3
Patrice Bergeron lit the lamp twice and earned an assist, lifting Boston Bruins to a 6-3 victory over Dallas Stars on Thursday.
Milan Lucic and Shawn Thornton also lit the lamp for Bruins, who have won for the sixth time in their past eight contests. Tyler Seguin and Brad Marchand each tallied a goal late in the final period. Marchand also assisted twice while Mark Recchi collected
three assists in the win.
Tuukka Rask turned aside 30-of-33 shots to earn the win.
Brenden Morrow and Brad Richards both provided offence for Dallas, which has dropped two consecutive games and four of its past five on the heels of a five-game winning streak.
Karlis Skrastins also found the net for Stars. Andrew Raycroft was beaten for two goals. He was replaced by Kari Lehtonen, who surrendered three goals on 32 shots.
Boston dominated the play in the opening session, jumping out to a 4-0 advantage.
Lucic opened the scoring to give Bruins a 1-0 lead just 35 seconds into the game, as he beat Raycroft from in close.
Just 40 seconds later, Bergeron registered his first goal on Bruins’ next shot for 2-0 lead.
Raycroft was quickly pulled after allowing goals on the only two shots he faced.
“You never want to see a hit (Paille on Sawada) on either side,” Bergeron said. “I was just happy when the guy got up and he was OK.”
Bergeron enhanced the lead to 3-0 halfway through the first period and Thornton ripped a nice slap shot from the right circle to make it 4-0 game, with four minutes left in the first frame.
Skrastins put Stars on the board to cut the deficit to 4-1 halfway through the middle stanza. He took advantage of a Bruins line-change with a wrist shot from the slot for his first goal in 14 play-offs.
A couple of minutes later, Bruins’ Daniel Paille was given a penalty for a game misconduct owing to a hit he delivered on Dallas forward, Raymond Sawada, in the Stars zone. Sawada had lost control of the puck and as he leaned down to gain control, Paille
connected with a blindside hit to Sawada’s shoulder and head.
Dallas then mounted a failed comeback bid in the final period. Morrow cut the Stars’ deficit in half 4-2, as he netted a short-handed goal on a wrist shot 45 seconds in, and Richards pulled Stars within a goal with a one-timer to make it 4-3 game in the
fourth minute of the last period.
However, Sequin fired a shot past Lehtonen from the right circle less than two minutes later to recover Boston’s two-goal edge and Marchand tallied an empty netter in the last minutes to seal the win at 6-3.
Moments before Marchand's goal, Bergeron was about to complete his hat-trick, but his shot went wide from near the right circle.
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