Bruins take over Atlantic lead

In Boston Thursday night, the Bruins finally chased down the Tampa Bay Lightning and took over first place in the Atlantic Division with a 4-2 win over the Bolts.

Boston took a 2-0 lead in the first period  on goals from Tim Schaller and David Pastrnak and never looked back.

The win gave the Bruins not only the divisional lead but also the lead in the Eastern Conference.

“I guess when you look at the importance of the game, they’ve been in first place pretty much as long as I can remember this year. So that’s nice, to pass them,” Bruins coach Bruce Cassidy said.

Tuukka Rask made 26 saves to get the win as the Bruins improved to 48-17-11.

“It was an awesome game. You know that’s why we play hockey, for this kind of game. It’s a lot of fun and it just shows how good of a team we are, and the guys, you could see that everybody was on board tonight,” Pastrnak said after the game.

The lightning had been in first place since late October.

“I thought we played great in the second and third. I thought we were the better team, whether it was them sitting back on a two-goal lead or us pressuring, I thought we controlled the play,” Lightning captain Steven Stamkos said. “It’s tough … against a team like that to go down two and expect to win, they defend so well. Obviously we’d like to be on the other end of it.”

J.T. Miller and Victor Hedman scored for the Lightning.

Patrice Bergeron scored for Boston and Brad Marchand added an empty-netter to seal it.

“Well we don’t want to get too far ahead of ourselves, but at the end of the year, we’re playing some meaningful games, maybe looking up at some potential matchups in the future,” Bruins defenseman Torey Krug said. “You just want to make sure that you go out there and show that you can play any type of game. So the emotion, the drive out there, it was tough. Every inch of ice was earned and we did a good job.”

[WATCH: All Lightning vs. Bruins highlights]

Andrei Vasilevskiy made 26 saves in taking the loss.

“Got to keep playing the games, got to play hard. The big thing for us is we’re in the playoffs. But one of our goals was try and get the division. And we’ve got these guys one more time (April 3 at Tampa Bay), so obviously that game’s going to be a big one,” Lightning head coach Jon Cooper said after the loss.