Bruins top Sabres on penalty shot

BOSTON - Forward Brad Marchand stayed hot, scoring on a penalty shot 2:32 into overtime and goaltender Tuukka Rask made 37 saves to help the Boston Bruins sweep a home-and-home with the Buffalo Sabres by winning 2-1 at TD Garden on Saturday.
The Bruins (28-18-6) defeated the Sabres 3-2 in a shootout at First Niagara Center Thursday.
Marchand has nine goals in his past nine games and leads the Bruins with 24 goals.

Marchand earned the penalty shot by stealing Rasmus Ristolainen's pass near the Buffalo blue line and gaining the zone with speed. Ristolainen dropped his stick and grabbed Marchand to prevent a scoring chance. It was the first overtime penalty-shot goal in Bruins history.
"To be honest, I was so tired so I was just trying to catch my breath going in there," Marchand said. "So I was trying to read what he was doing and luckily it went in."
Loui Eriksson also scored for Boston, which is 7-2-1 in its past 10 games.
"The third period, it's a 1-1 hockey game. ... the team we've been playing here deserves a lot more credit for how they're playing because they're a hard team to play against," Bruins coach Claude Julien said. "It was a good pace to the game. Even the referees were mentioning how quick of a pace of a game that was, back and forth. And I thought we battled hard, both teams did. And at the end, it took an overtime win to decide the outcome. So I like the way our guys are competing right now and just by working the way we have and committing a little bit more we're only going to get better."
Sam Reinhart scored for the second straight game and Robin Lehner made 36 saves for the Sabres (21-26-6), who haven't lost in regulation in the past four games (2-0-2).

Sabres coach Dan Bylsma disagreed with the penalty shot call. He compared the play with one Bruins defenseman Dennis Seidenberg made to prevent a Jamie McGinn breakaway at 12:47 of the third period. Seidenberg was called for a tripping minor.
"We're talking about a sequence of events of Jamie McGinn having, it's not even a similar play, it's a guy leaving his feet, taking him down on a breakaway," Bylsma said. "I think there's some interference on Zach Bogosian that allows Torey Krug to have a breakaway [in overtime]. And there's no separation on the last play. Rasmus is right there with him, and the judgment of the referee awards a penalty shot, and I'm not sure I see it the same way."
Boston scored first when Eriksson buried a slam dunk from the right side of the slot at 12:22. After David Pastrnak pressured Buffalo defenseman Cody Franson into a bad pass, David Krejci intercepted the puck and passed it to Pastrnak in the left circle. Pastrnak's fake pulled defenseman Mike Weber and Lehner to him and left the other side of the net wide open for Eriksson after a slap pass. It was Eriksson's first goal in 10 games and one of the easiest he scored this season.
"Yeah that was one of them I think," he said. "It was a great pass by Pastrnak there and yeah, it was nice to [score]. It's been a while since I've scored so it's nice."

Reinhart tied it 1-1 10:53 into the second period on a rebound of a McGinn shot from the high slot. After Josh Gorges poke checked Brett Connolly at the Boston blue line and McGinn fed the puck to Ryan O'Reilly down low. O'Reilly eluded Bergeron's check and set up McGinn for a shot that went off Rask to Reinhart near the right post for the goal.
Despite the result, Bylsma liked the Sabres' effort.
"Well I thought there was a stretch in the first period where I thought they took the play to us, early on in the first 10 minutes of the game or so," Bylsma said. "And I thought we hung in there and I thought we battled back. I thought we battled back in the second, and like I said, it was a pretty hard-fought, even game going both ways. And you know I liked the way our team battled, but you're coming up short at the end, and we can't afford to do that."
The Bruins host the Los Angeles Kings on Tuesday. The Sabres host the Florida Panthers on Tuesday.