Bruins hold off Stars to extend lead in Atlantic Division

BOSTON -- The Boston Bruins extended their lead in the Atlantic Division with a 4-3 win against the Dallas Stars at TD Garden on Thursday.

Nick Ritchie scored his first goal in his second game for Boston, and Jaroslav Halak made 31 saves to win his sixth straight start for the Bruins (40-13-12), who won for the first time in three games but are 12-3-0 in their past 15.
The Bruins lead the Tampa Bay Lightning, who lost 5-2 to the Chicago Blackhawks on Thursday, by seven points in the Atlantic.
Ritchie, who also had an assist, was traded to Boston by the Anaheim Ducks on Monday.
"It was good. It was nice to score, nice to win," Ritchie said. "It was a good night tonight."
WATCH: [All Stars vs. Bruins highlights]
Ben Bishop made 24 saves for the Stars (37-21-6), who had won their previous two games. They remained one point behind the Colorado Avalanche for second place in the Central Division.
"I thought we battled very hard," Dallas coach Rick Bowness said. "Clearly we can't give up four goals, and the two tap-ins at the bottom were a lot. But I thought we did a lot of really good things out there. That's the best team in the League, and we battled it for sixty minutes. I thought we had some good looks, we had a couple of breakdowns that gave them a couple easy goals. But we had a lot of good looks. We spent a lot more time in the offensive zone."
Jamie Benn scored on a power play at 17:38 to give Dallas a 1-0 lead. It was his 300th NHL goal.

Boston tied the score 1-1 on Charlie Coyle's power-play goal at 19:44. He batted a rebound of a Torey Krug shot to himself and then batted the puck in out of the air.
Brad Marchand gave the Bruins a 2-1 lead at 14:44 of the second period on a one-timer from the left slot after a cross-ice pass by Charlie McAvoy.
Ritchie made it a 3-1 at 16:01 when his shot from the high slot deflected off Tyler Seguin's stick past Bishop.
"It was just a simple shot, and whenever you see it go in, it feels good," Ritchie said.
Dallas made it 3-2 on Denis Gurianov's goal at 1:18 of the third period, when he deflected Esa Lindell's shot into the goal.
The Bruins went ahead 4-2 when David Pastrnak scored from the top of the crease at 3:53 during a give-and-go with Ritchie. It was his NHL-leading 46th goal of the season.

Miro Heiskanen got the Stars back within 4-3 with a 6-on-5 goal at 17:56.
The Bruins had lost their previous two games by a combined score of 14-5.
"Well we turn the page, we correct the mistakes and we believe in each other, we believe we have a good team," Boston center David Krejci said. "We work hard, we have skills so if we play the right way. But like I said, we corrected the mistakes, we spent a lot of team looking at the video. Played a tough team, tough game, but it was nice to get a win."

They said it

"You know they're the best team in the League right now. They can put the puck in the net and there was a little stretch where they scored a couple quick ones and kind of broke it open. And every time we answered a little bit, they hung, were able to get a quick one back. It was a good test, it's always a good test every night to raise our game, play with emotion, play the right way, kind of some of the things we talk about. There's no reason we can't play with that and we think we felt that tonight and that's how it is every night." -- Stars forward Joe Pavelski
"Listen, I'm not going to say he's going to get two points every night, but he'll probably be somewhere in between there and that's what we expect out of him. A bigger body, especially in this type of game I thought, they're a heavy team, they finish checks and you've got to work to get to the net. And I thought he did a real good job with that." -- Bruins coach Bruce Cassidy on forward Nick Ritchie

Need to know

The Stars lost in regulation for the first time in their past nine road games (6-1-2). … Forward Ondrej Kase, who was traded to the Bruins from the Ducks last Friday, made his debut for Boston. He had two shots and two hits in 15:16 of ice time. … Bruins forward Chris Wagner left the game in the third period with an upper-body injury.

What's next

Stars: At the St. Louis Blues on Saturday (8 p.m. ET; FS-SW, FS-MW, NHL.TV)
Bruins: At the New York Islanders on Saturday (1 p.m. ET; NHLN, NESN, MSG, SN, NHL.TV)