Patrice Bergeron scored twice and Carter Camper scored his first career NHL goal as the Boston Bruins defeated the Ottawa Senators 5-3 on Saturday night at Scotiabank Place, extending their lead in the Eastern Conference's Northeast Division to five points.
After their division lead had dwindled to just two points on Wednesday night, Boston took a point in a shootout loss at Buffalo on Friday and won a game that was closer than it looked against the Senators on Saturday night.
Turnovers dotted the Ottawa stat sheet, as the Senators handed Boston the puck 15 times. Boston also had nine takeaways in the game, and for the second consecutive night it was a less disciplined opponent that had trouble playing with Boston.
Bergeron started the scoring for Boston in the first period, and Brad Marchand added a goal before the end of the frame. Camper lit the lamp at 3:57 of the second period, and it seemed as if Boston would coast when Chris Neil laid out Johnny Boychuk early in the third period, sending Boychuk to the locker room for the rest of the night.
On the next shift, Kyle Turris sent Joe Corvo head-first into the boards with a elbow from behind that earned Turris two minutes for boarding. The Bruins wouldn't score on that power play, but when Colin Greening went just moments later for interfering with Tim Thomas in the crease, David Krejci caught a rebound off of a Dennis Seidenberg blast and deposited what would become the game-winning goal.
After Zdeno Chara and Neil threw down at the seven-minute mark of the third, Ottawa took advantage of the big man being off the ice with two late Daniel Alfredsson one-timers from the half wall that made it a game, but Bergeron nailed a 120-foot empty net goal with just under a minute to go to ice the game away for the Bruins.
Ottawa and Boston renew acquaintances on Tuesday night at TD Garden.