Penguins edge Bruins 3-2 in OT

David Krejci pulled the Bruins even at 2-2 during the final minute of regulation to force overtime, but Dustin Jeffrey (2 goals) would prove to be the hero as a depleted Pittsburgh Penguins team downed the Bruins 3-2 on Saturday night at TD Garden.

Zdeno Chara's snap shot from the slot gave the Bruins a 1-0 lead 7:26 into the second period. Milan Lucic started the breakout on the left wing and sent the puck to David Krejci along the right wing boards in the neutral zone. Krejci gained the offensive zone and pulled up just inside the blue line before sliding the puck to Chara in the high slot. Big Z advanced the puck into the slot, held the puck for a moment before getting off a snap shot that beat Marc-Andre Fleury with Milan Lucic providing a screen in front.

The Penguins hit the reset button 2:43 after Chara's tally on Jordan Staal's 7th goal of the season. Staal and Tyler Kennedy broke in 2-on-1 on Zdeno Chara. Kennedy got Chara and Tim Thomas to over-commit, leaving Staal with a wide open net to work with at the door step.

Pittsburgh struck again just 1:10 later. This time it was Dustin Jeffrey who put the puck in the net for the flightless birds. Zbynek Michalek's centering pass from the right wing wall found Maxime Talbot in the high slot, who moved the puck down Jeffrey further down in the slot. Jeffrey then buried his shot for the 6th time this season.

With less than a minute to play and Tim Thomas pulled for the extra attacker, Matt Cooke lined up a shot at the empty net to put the game away, but Tomas Kaberle got his shin pads in the shooting lane creating a rush the other way for the Bruins. The B's worked the puck down low where Milan Lucic gained possession behind the goal line on the right wing. Lucic moved the puck to Horton on the other side of the goal, who alerted found Krejci in the slot. Krejci hammered home the one-timer from the slot to record the equalizer and give the Bruins new life with 33 seconds left to play in regulation.

Dustin Jeffrey's game-winner came 1:52 into overtime after Jeffrey picked off a clearing pass by Dennis Seidenberg. Jeffrey quickly got passed Seidenberg, broke in all alone on Thomas and deposited the puck into the back of the night for the second time tonight.

Notes:

- Happy 93rd birthday to Milt Schmidt!

- Zbynek Machalek recorded his 100th career assist on Dustin Jeffrey's second period goal.

- Enemy of the State of Massachusetts (and most of the other New England states) Matt Cooke played in his 800th career NHL game.

- Claude Julien's was behind the Bruins' bench for 311th regular season game, moving into 6th place on the Bruins all-time list.

- Mark Recchi is now 6th on the NHL's all-time games played list. He played in his 1,636th game tonight.

- The Penguins have now given up points in 14 straight games.

- This is exactly why the charity points need to go. If the Bruins can't beat the Wilkes-Barre Scranton Penguins, they don't deserve points.

- I liked the intensity and skating out of the Bruins early in this game, but they seemed to have concrete in their skates for most of the second period.

- Patrice Bergeron missed tonight's game. According to the Bruins, Bergeron was excused to deal with a personal issue.

- Steven Kampfer was all out of action tonight with a mild concussion.

- For more on tonight's game, head over PensBurgh

Post-Game Quotes:

"I thought that we didn’t have our best game, that’s for sure. We were just, we had heavy legs, we didn’t skate well, we didn’t move the puck well. On the other side Pittsburgh played extremely well. They put a lot of pressure on us. They took away space and time and we couldn’t create much. They, even they had back to back games. They had pretty good jump and energy. It almost felt like we were the team who played last night. But it’s going to happen. You’re going to have games like this where we were just slow and not moving the puck as well as we used to. But we worked extremely hard in the third and earned that point. That’s the positive. Obviously we’d like to get two but it happens."

Zdeno Chara

"I just tried to get an angle on the guy and I ended up picking off the pass. I think I caught the guy flat footed after he made that pass."

Penguins forward Dustin Jeffrey on his game-winner in OT

"I made a very nice pass to the wrong guy … They battled back and I gave the puck away and got caught flat-footed and they scored. It’s not fun."

Dennis Seidenberg description of the turnover that led to Dustin Jeffrey's game-winner

"I guess if you want to take a positive out of it you can. But for me personally right now, I’m pretty frustrated with that play. But again, we play again on Tuesday, and it’s another game."

Dennis Seidenberg when asked if he gets any satisfaction out of the team getting a point tonight

"Pittsburgh definitely came ready to play.  They outskated us.  They didn’t look like they played back-to-back games.  They were playing playoff style of hockey.  They were getting the puck in deep, forechecking, and getting the puck in our zone.  That is why we had so much trouble with them.  We were fortunate to get the one point."

Tim Thomas

"We have a game Tuesday against Montreal. We’ve got to look past tonight and move on."

Michael Ryder

"Well you know, to me, we played probably half a game. The first half of the first period I thought we started off well and then the second half of the first we just slipped. And same thing in the second period, I thought our third period we battled a lot better. And every once in a while you rely on that sixth attacker to help you gain a point and we’ll take that tonight. But you know lately we’ve been winning games because we’ve played sixty minutes and tonight wasn’t the case."

Claude Julien on if the Bruins were fortunate to get a point tonight