SUNRISE, Fla. (AP) — Tuukka Rask is certainly a welcome sight in net for the Boston Bruins.
Rask stopped 33 shots to help lead the Bruins to a 2-1 victory over the Florida Panthers on Tuesday night. Rask made his second start after missing three games with an injury and has been in goal for all five of the Bruins’ wins this season.
“I’ve felt good all along,” Rask said. “Probably just because of the chances we gave up (on penalties), I had to make more saves, but I felt good all along.”
Brad Marchand and Dominic Moore scored to lead the Bruins to their second straight after a three-game skid.
“He looked good tonight and the main reason we’re standing here with two points,” Bruins coach Claude Julien said of Rask.
Denis Malgin scored for the Panthers and Roberto Luongo had 24 saves in Florida’s fourth loss in five games.
Trailing 2-0, the Panthers got on the scoreboard on Malgin’s first NHL goal with 4:35 left in the third when his shot from the slot beat Rask. It snapped the Bruins goalie’s shutout streak of 131:11.
“I had many chances and I didn’t score,” Malgin said. “Now, I finally scored. It’s nice, but we lost and that’s bad.”
The Panthers pulled their goalie with 3:20 left during a power play to give them a 6-on-4 advantage but couldn’t score.
“We had a lot of chances in that first period and couldn’t capitalize and Tuukka Rask was the difference,” Panthers coach Gerard Gallant said. “He played a great game.”
Marchand gave the Bruins a 1-0 lead with his goal on the penalty shot 3:53 in. Reilly Smith was called for hooking Marchand from behind. Marchand then skated in on Luongo and put the puck over his glove for his 300th NHL point. Marchand is now 4 for 5 on penalty shots in his career.
The Bruins were outshot 13-3 in the first period.
“We had so many turnovers, it was a real bad start, it was a bad period,” Julien said. “Those are the kind of starts we are trying to avoid. We had a goaltender that was ready to play and kept us in there.”
The Bruins made it 2-0 on a short-handed goal by Moore at 6:16 of the second. Moore’s angle shot from below the left circle rolled in and out of the net so quickly that the goal light didn’t go off and play continued, but an official’s review a few seconds later determined the puck had crossed the goal line before it came out.
“Sometimes you can surprise a goalie from those kinds of angles and you try to release it quick and you never know,” Moore said. “It was just fortunate that it found its way.”
The Panthers were on the power play seven times but couldn’t score as they managed only six shots, and gave up the short-handed goal to Moore in the second.
“That hurt,” Gallant said. “They scored a short-handed goal also. It definitely hurt. We got outworked on our power play and that was the bottom line.”
NOTES: Florida RW Jaromir Jagr played in his 1,639th NHL game, tying him with Dave Andreychuk for sixth on the all-time list. … Panthers RW Jonathan Marchessault, 25, has been named the NHL’s third star for October, tying for the league lead with six goals and adding five assists in nine games. … Bruins RW David Pastrnak, who leads Boston with five goals, sat out the second of a two-game NHL suspension for a high hit against the New York Rangers.
UP NEXT
Bruins: At Tampa Bay on Thursday night.
Panthers: Host New Jersey on Thursday night.
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