Mason Lohrei scored the game-winning goal with 4:37 left in the third period and Morgan Geekie netted his first career hat trick as the Boston Bruins held off the visiting Vegas Golden Knights 5-4 on Thursday night.
Boston let a 3-0 lead slip as Chandler Stephenson scored a short-handed goal at 5:01 of the third to tie the game at 4-4. However, Kevin Shattenkirk set up Lohrei for the power-play one-timer that clinched the game following a kill of defenseman Matt Grzelcyk’s minor seconds earlier.
Geekie became the fifth Bruin to net a three-goal game this season.
The Bruins are on a 3-0-4 run. Their previous six games all went to overtime.
Jesper Boqvist also scored, David Pastrnak and Shattenkirk each had two assists and Jeremy Swayman made 32 saves for Boston.
Chandler Stephenson had a goal and an assist to lead Vegas, which is 2-5-1 in its past eight games.
Paul Cotter, Alex Pietrangelo and Michael Amadio also scored and Adin Hill made 27 saves for the Golden Knights.
Boston had a 16-8 shot advantage in the first period and scored two of its three goals in a 30-second span.
Geekie scored first at 14:34 when he beat Hill high glove-side on a breakaway after Trent Frederic sent a knuckling pass down the middle following a shot block.
Boqvist’s wrist shot quickly doubled the Boston lead. Shattenkirk took a drive from the right circle that bounced to Jakub Lauko, who slipped a backhand feed from the high slot to Boqvist in the slot for the finish.
Geekie roofed his second goal at 16:54, dropping to a knee in the left circle to one-time Pastrnak’s cross-ice pass high inside the top corner.
Vegas started to turn the game in the middle frame, cutting its deficit to 3-2 before Geekie completed his hat trick. First, Cotter batted in Nicolas Roy’s lob from the blue line out of mid-air at 1:48.
Pietrangelo made it a one-goal game when he knocked the puck through a scramble and into an open side of Swayman’s net at 6:57.
Geekie’s third goal provided Boston with temporary insurance with 3:28 left in the second, coming off a deflection of Pastrnak’s shot from the left circle.
Vegas got back within 4-3 just 1:14 later as Amadio beat Swayman with an open wrister after Stephenson slipped a pass out from behind the net.
After Hill stoned Boston captain Brad Marchand’s backdoor finish attempt, the Golden Knights knotted the score on Stephenson’s break.
–Field Level Media
