Tim Stutzle’s pair of third-period goals included the eventual game-winner with 5:43 remaining, leading the Ottawa Senators to a 5-3 win over the visiting Boston Bruins on Thursday night.
Stutzle finished with three points while Claude Giroux and Dylan Cozens each had a goal and an assist for the Senators, who withstood Boston’s two-goal rally in the final frame to win their seventh game of the last 11 (7-1-3).
Shane Pinto also scored and Leevi Merilainen stopped 18 shots for Ottawa. Two of Merilainen’s three wins this season have come against Boston.
David Pastrnak and Morgan Geekie each had a goal and an assist, Mark Kastelic also lit the lamp, and Joonas Korpisalo made 17 saves for Boston, which had a seven-game win streak snapped.
Pastrnak tied Rick Middleton for fifth on Boston’s all-time franchise goals list (402).
A turnover along the wall led to Stutzle’s winner. After Artem Zub had a point shot blocked, Drake Batherson restarted the play in the left circle and sent a pass across to Stutzle who scored high on Korpisalo’s glove side.
Stutzle added an insurance goal into an empty net with 18 seconds to go.
Ottawa had a 22-21 advantage in shots on goal. Boston’s final shot was with 6:58 remaining.
Ottawa took advantage of a first-minute power play and scored at 1:28. Cozens bumped the puck to Tim Stutzle on the right wing, where he threaded a pass to Giroux to finish on an open far side.
After Boston’s Mikey Eyssimont rang the crossbar at 7:19, Cozens doubled the hosts’ lead with 56.5 seconds left in the first. Fabian Zetterlund wheeled around and sent a perfect pass to the centerman who let a one-timer go from the slot.
Just after Merilainen made a challenging stop on Sean Kuraly, Geekie cut Boston’s deficit in half with a tap-in at 11:49. Charlie McAvoy made a lead pass to Marat Khusnutdinov, who then fed David Pastrnak across the ice to make the primary set-up.
Ottawa regained its two-goal lead 1:06 into the third, as Michael Amadio led Pinto down the slot for a redirection goal while Boston was making a line change.
After having a power-play goal taken away due to offside, Pastrnak brought the Bruins within 3-2 on the rebound of a Geekie shot on the right side at 3:49.
At 5:15, Kastelic scored the tying goal against his former team. Tanner Jeannot forced a turnover and fired a shot that Merilainen saved, but Kastelic cut to the left post and knocked the puck home.
One game after Thomas Chabot’s injury, the Senators lost defenseman Nick Jensen due to an upper-body ailment early in the second period.
–Field Level Media
