OTTAWA, Ontario (AP) Jake DeBrusk wasn’t even trying to score and ended up with the winner.
DeBrusk beat Mike Condon with 8:41 left to lift the Boston Bruins over the Ottawa Senators 3-2 on Thursday night for their fifth straight win.
”I was aiming for a rebound and got some puck luck there,” said DeBrusk, who scored his 11th of the season. ”I think (Condon would) like to have that one back.”
Danton Heinen and Tim Schaller also scored to help the Bruins get a point in their 18th straight game (14-0-4), their second longest point streak ever. Tuukka Rask stopped 21 shots.
Thomas Chabot and Ryan Dzingel scored for Ottawa, but the Senators are mired in a five-game skid.
Condon had 41 saves. The backup can’t seem to catch a break this season, allowing a bad goal in nearly every home game he’s played. The Senators (15-23-9) are on a five-game losing streak.
”You let in a bad goal when you’re playing bad, you’re still going to think it’s a bad goal, so if you’re playing well and you let in a bad goal, it doesn’t really matter,” Condon said. ”A bad goal is a bad goal. They don’t feel very good. I don’t know what else to say about that.”
Condon was the only reason the Senators were even in it as the Bruins outshot the Ottawa 20-7 in the first period.
”He was standing on his head,” Dzingel said. ”I think they had 21 shots in the first period and we wanted to hold them to 25 for the whole game so when a guy like that’s playing for you, you want to do anything you can for him.”
Boston was without leading scorer Brad Marchand, who began his five-game suspension for an elbow against New Jersey forward Marcus Johansson on Tuesday.
The Bruins took a 2-1 lead on a short-handed goal when Patrice Bergeron won a race to the puck and fed Schaller for a breakaway. The lead was short lived, as the Senators scored 20 seconds later after Dzingel and Matt Duchene executed a give-and-go.
The Bruins regained the lead when DeBrusk fired a bad-angle shot that Condon got a stick on, but the puck fluttered over and behind him.
With the Bruins on the power play, Zack Smith had the opportunity to clear the puck, but instead had his shot intercepted by Bergeron, who then found David Pastrnak. Pastrnak had a fluttering shot go up in the air and Heinen, with his first in nine games, was able to get a piece of it and beat Condon through the legs to tie it at 1.
Despite being outshot badly, the Senators managed to get out of the first period with a 1-0 lead. Chabot got his fourth of the season by firing a shot that hit Adam McQuaid’s skate blade and went past Rask.
NOTES: During the first period, the Senators recognized Chris Neil, who retired last month, for his contributions to the organization. Mark Stone missed his third straight game with a lower-body injury, as did D Johnny Oduya (undisclosed). Boston C Noel Acciari missed the game due to a lower-body injury.
UP NEXT
Bruins: Host Anaheim on Tuesday night.
Senators: Play at Carolina on Tuesday night.
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