BOSTON -- For the third time this season the Boston Bruins erased a multigoal deficit.
Saturday, however, Brad Marchand made sure the comeback wasn't in vain -- he scored the game-winning goal on a 2-on-1 with Patrice Bergeron with 2:16 left in the third period to give the Bruins a 3-2 victory against the Tampa Bay Lightning at TD Garden.
The Bruins had lost the previous two games in which they rallied to tie the score after trailing by more than one. Boston has won six in a row, and Marchand leads the team with 11 goals, including four game-winners.
"Those are the goals you want to get, the important ones," Marchand said. "Again, it's at the right time. I think one I scored in the second period. That's how it goes sometimes. I don't look too much into it. It's just continue to do the little things right and hopefully the goals come."
Marchand was in the right place at the right time partly because he was arguing a non-call against Tampa Bay's Eric Brewer, who had stolen the puck from Marchand moments before the goal. Brewer's outlet pass sent off Steven Stamkos on a partial 3-on-2. The Lightning sniper missed with a shot to the far side, and the bounce off the glass sent Bergeron and Marchand down the ice the other way.
Marchand thought he'd been cross-checked by Brewer prior to the turnover.
"He was just setting himself up," Bruins coach Claude Julien said with a smirk. "That's what good goal scorers do. They set themselves up, and they get the right gap, and he was in the right place at the right time."
Stamkos, the NHL Player of the Month for February, was trying to not second guess himself too much after the game. He was encouraged by how hard his team played in its fourth straight loss.
"When things aren't going your way, they're not going your way," Stamkos said. "I thought tonight was a much better game, obviously, [as far as] battle level, competitiveness. But maybe I've got to hit the net there. I have confidence in my shot and I'm trying to get the puck on net. I'm not trying to make a play across the ice. It goes all the way around, that's probably the only way I miss it from that side. I don't know if I do it again, maybe I shoot short side or no. I have confidence in my shot and trying to get the puck on net."
Lightning coach Guy Boucher saw the decisive play as more an indictment of Brewer's decision-making; the defenseman was skating with Stamkos stride for stride and wound up in front of the Bruins' net when the puck was heading the other way.
"We're in a penalty kill. Our defenseman jumps into the play on the penalty kill. We're thinking offense, period," Boucher said. "We're not thinking the right thing on that one. It hits the net, no problem. ... I knew it screaming from the bench for our D to stay back. I knew that if the puck misses the net it goes right around and that's exactly what happened. I've seen this so many times. We can't do that, we just can't do that."
The Lightning are 3-10-1 in their past 14.
Stamkos helped get Tampa Bay out to an early 2-0 lead with a power play goal 5:32 into the game. The Lightning unit, struggling at a 4-for-44 clip, doubled the lead later in the first period. Alex Killorn skated behind the Boston defense and beat goaltender Anton Khudobin (20 saves) with a backhand shot at 8:38.
In a game with 13 power plays, the Bruins used theirs to get back into the game after falling behind 2-0. Tyler Seguin put them on the board with a wrist shot from a stride off the goal line to the top shelf of the net 3:22 into the second period.
Boston tied the game on a Rich Peverley one-timer from near the same place as Seguin's and Stamkos' goals. Adam McQuaid made a cross-ice pass and Peverley buried the puck with 4:39 elapsed.
