Ducks hold on for win against Bruins

BOSTON -- Rickard Rakell scored the game-winner and Jonathan Bernier made 31 saves for the Anaheim Ducks in a 4-3 win against the Boston Bruins at TD Garden on Thursday.
Rakell scored on a rebound at 5:02 of the second period for the Ducks (16-10-5), who won for the fourth time in their past five games (4-1-0). Anaheim has won six in a row against Boston. Rakell, who also had an assist, has a five-game point streak and eight goals in his past 12 games.
Andrew Cogliano, Kevin Bieksa and Josh Manson also scored for the Ducks, who are 1-1-0 to start their six-game road trip after bouncing back from a 6-2 loss to the Dallas Stars on Tuesday.

WATCH: All Ducks vs. Bruins highlights
"Well I thought we just executed," Bernier said. "We didn't really panic. If we had no play we just chipped it out and we took the ice and that's what you've got to do in the third [period]. When you have the lead, you keep that middle tight, you let them shoot from the outside if you have to give up something, and that's what we did."
Zdeno Chara, Austin Czarnik and David Krejci scored, and Anton Khudobin made 23 saves for the Bruins (16-13-3), who lost for the fifth time in their past six games (1-3-2) and haven't defeated the Ducks since Oct. 21, 2013. David Backes had two assists.
The Bruins outshot the Ducks 11-5 in the third period but couldn't get the tying goal past Bernier.

"I thought our third period we at least gave it a good push," Bruins coach Claude Julien said. "We couldn't get that goal but I thought the guys tried for three tough games in four nights, I appreciated the effort the guys gave in the third period to try and get ourselves back into it."
Chara made it 1-0 with a slap shot through a Patrice Bergeron screen at 12:07 of the first period. Czarnik one-timed Ryan Spooner's pass past Bernier to give Boston a 2-0 lead at 12:20.
Cogliano made it 2-1 when he landed a shot on Khudobin and Krejci deflected the rebound into the net at 12:44 of the first.
Bieksa ended an 18-game goal drought when he tied it 2-2 at 17:50.
Manson scored from the top of the blue paint 55 seconds into the second period to give the Ducks a 3-2 lead. It was Manson's first goal of the season and first in 36 games.
Krejci's power-play goal at 2:06 of the second tied it 3-3.

Goal of the game

Rakell was in perfect position to the left of the slot to score the game-winner after Vatanen's shot from the right point went off Khudobin's pads.

Save of the game

Bernier denied Riley Nash with a glove save on a shot from the slot at 4:57 of the third period.

Highlight of the game

Bieksa scored on a rare breakaway. Ryan Getzlaf picked up an errant Boston pass in the Anaheim zone and hit Bieksa, who had just left the penalty box, in stride at the Bruins blue line. Boston challenged whether Bieksa was offside but the goal was upheld.

Unsung performance of the game

Bieksa dove to break up a pass from Spooner to Bergeron with 5:51 remaining to end a 2-on-1 down low and extinguish a potential game-tying scoring chance.

They said it

"The first goal was all me. Everyone had their guy. I just kind of put the stick on it, tried to clear it, but things like that happen. [Khudobin] had zero chance on that. And I felt like we should've done a little better job in front of him. They had always two guys crashing the net ... so we've got to do a better job of this and help him out a little better." -- Bruins center David Krejci on goaltender Anton Khudobin, who is 1-5-0 this season
"Yeah, I think the goals that we scored early we were just running around the defensive zone. ... So I think it was just more of 'take it easy here and get back to structure and just relax." -- Ducks forward Andrew Cogliano on coach Randy Carlyle calling a timeout when Anaheim trailed 2-0

Need to know

Sami Vatanen got his 80th assist to pass Lubomir Visnovsky and Ruslan Salei for seventh on Anaheim's all-time list by a defenseman. ... Bruins defenseman Kevan Miller didn't play because of a virus. He left Boston's 4-3 overtime loss to the Pittsburgh Penguins in the second period on Wednesday.

What's next

Ducks: At the Detroit Red Wings on Saturday (7 p.m. ET; FS-D, PRIME, NHL.TV)
Bruins: Host the Los Angeles Kings on Sunday (1 p.m. ET; SN, NESN, FS-W, NHL.TV)