In Boston, the visiting Pittsburgh Penguins needed a power play goal fro Sidney Crosby at 11:19 of the third period to salvage a 6-5 win over the Bruins on Thursday.
The Pens had surrendered a 5-2 lead and found themselves tied after Brad Marchand had made it 5-5 at 3:08 of the third off a shorthanded marker.
“Weird start with five [goals] in the first eight minutes, but some games happen like that and you got to be able to handle it,” Crosby said. “They get a big one short-handed there. Momentum swung a couple times there both ways. So just one of those games where last goal is [going to] win, and we got the last one.”
The Pens had scored four in the first period to take a 4-2 lead into the middle frame.
Alex Nedeljkovic made 24 saves in the win.
Pittsburgh improved to Penguins 19-14-4.
“It’s fun to win those games, maybe not for the goalies,” Nedeljkovic said. “But I mean it’s a heck of a lot better than coming out on the losing side for us. … They were on top of us to start there. It can be hard to stay positive and stay with it, and I thought we did a great job of that all night.”
“Throughout the course of the game, there was a lot of good and then some not-so-good,” Pittsburgh coach Mike Sullivan said. “But I really liked how we responded. We didn’t allow it to get us down and snowball into something worse.”
Marchand hit for a double in the Boston loss, his goal came with 41 seconds of game fresh ice used in the opening stanza for a 1-0 lead.
Pittsburgh replied with a goal from Drew O’Connor at 5:04 to tie it, 1-1.
The Pens went up, 2-1 when Ryan Graves scored at 6:17 of the first.
Boston’s David Pastrnak wasted no time when he scored 22 seconds later to knot it up, 2-2, at 6:39.
Pittsburgh then scored twice to take a two-goal lead in the middle frame.
Jake Guentzel put the Pens ahead, 3-2,at 7:21.
Lars Eller pushed the lead out to 4-2 at 15:58.
Boston dropped to 23-8-6, snapping a four-game winning streak.
“I don’t like our ice management,” Boston coach Jim Montgomery said. “I don’t like the odd-man rushes we gave up, whether it’s on the power play or 5-on-5. Giving up an odd-man rush, it cost us a penalty that ended up getting the sixth goal. It’s just we’re not making sound decisions. We’re forcing stuff when we don’t need to.”
The Pens built on the lead when Jeff Carter added a marker at 6:38 for a 5-2 advantage.
The Bruins clawed their way back into the game with a pair of goals to close out the middle frame, trailing, 5-4.
Morgan Geekie trimmed the deficit to 5-3 midway through the second period.
“I think it shows a lot of character [from] the [locker] room battling like we did,” Geekie said. “We never really had a lead tonight (after the first five minutes) and we just kept fighting. Like I said, it’s one of those games we just keep building off of.”
Jake DeBrusk tightened it to 5-4 with 36 seconds left in the period. 
Jeremy Swayman made 29 saves in the loss..
“You got to give them credit,” Marchand said. “They have a lot of talent on that team. They make a lot of plays. A couple were lucky bounces, even the game-winner was off [Bruins defenseman Hampus Lindholm’s] shaft.
“But again, you give one of the best players in the world (Crosby) time and space, he’s going to make plays. Couple bounces there early that [we] would’ve liked to have back, but yeah, missing coverage against a team like that can’t happen, so we need to be better there.”
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