It looked very much like the Boston Bruins streak of 17 games straight without a regulation loss was going to end on Thursday night. Down 3-2 with under 40 seconds left, Matt Grzelcyk scored just his second goal of the season to tie it, and 30 seconds later Patrice Bergeron scored the game winner as the hosts extended their winning streak with a dramatic 4-3 win over the Florida Panthers at TD Garden.
Florida (28-27-12) got two powerplay goals in the second 3:39 apart from Alexsander Barkov and Jonathan Huberdeau to make it 2-0 after a scoreless opening period. David Krejci scored at 10:29 of the second for Boston to cut the deficit to 2-1 after two periods.
The Bruins tied it up shorthanded in the third period at 8:50 when Charlie McAvoy dropped a puck off near the blue line to Bergeron, who took one stride and fired a shot over the shoulder of Florida goalie Roberto Luongo. Huberdeau scored his second of the game and 20th of the season to give the Panthers back the lead 2:05 later. Grzelcyks tying goal came on the powerplay with a screen in front of Luongo with 37 seconds left. The game winner was scored by Bergeron with only seven seconds left, and came when Brad Marchand tracked down a loose puck in the left corner. Marchand quickly found Bergeron, who was uncovered, and Bergeron snapped a quick wrist shot past Luongo from the very top of the faceoff dot to the right of the Panthers goalie to send the Garden crowd into delirium.
Huberdeau led Florida with two goals and an assist. Brad Marchand had three assists, now with 53 on the season, Bergeron had the two goals, and McAvoy also added a pair of assists for Boston who now extends the streak to 18 straight games without a regulation loss. Bergeron now has 25 goals on the season. Tuuka Rask got the win in net with 22 saves, while Luongo made 24 in the loss. Florida was 2-5 on the powerplay, while Boston was 1-4. The 41-17-9 Bruins will host Ottawa Saturday at 7 pm.
