Bergeron's hat trick powers Bruins past Senators

BOSTON -- Patrice Bergeron got his fourth career NHL hat trick and an assist to lead the Boston Bruins to a 6-3 win in their home opener against the Ottawa Senators at TD Garden on Monday.

David Pastrnak had two goals and two assists, Brad Marchand and Charlie McAvoy each had three assists, and Tuukka Rask made 28 saves for the Bruins, who have won their past five games against Ottawa.
Bergeron, who missed all of the preseason because of back spasms that slowed his recovery from offseason groin surgery, has six points (four goals, two assists) in the Bruins' first three games.
WATCH: [All Senators vs. Bruins highlights]
"There's a lot of the mental part of the game that you can still work on even though you're not on the ice, so I tried to work on that as much as possible," Bergeron said about his training camp. "Other than that, I think relying your experience from the past is something that's important as well."

Ryan Dzingel, who was a game-time decision after missing portions of practice because of an undisclosed injury on Sunday, had two goals for the Senators. Bobby Ryan scored, Dylan DeMelo had two assists, and Mike Condon made 24 saves.
"Yeah, it was a tough night," said Condon, who made his season debut. "Pretty much anything that could go wrong did from the goaltending perspective. It was just difficult tracking pucks, really couldn't find a rhythm, a lot of tips, deflections, bad breaks on the first goal. It's not an excuse but it was just a weird matinee. Watch the film, flush it and move on."
Brady Tkachuk, the No. 4 pick in the 2018 NHL Draft, made his NHL debut after missing the first two games of the season with a lower-body injury.
"I would've liked to get the two points, that would've capped the night off," said Tkachuk, who played in front of a large contingent of friends and family, including his dad, U.S. Hockey Hall of Famer Keith Tkachuk. "But we still battled, we outshot them, we just couldn't really buy one. Now we'll just worry about the game and put it behind us."

Bergeron gave the Bruins a 1-0 lead 30 seconds into the first period when he scored off a rebound from Pastrnak's initial shot in the crease. Bergeron made it 2-0 at 17:12 with a wrist shot from the right circle on the power play.
Dzingel cut it to 2-1 at 2:21 of the second period with a goal from the right post, but Chris Wagner tipped in a point shot past Condon at 7:02 to extend the lead to 3-1.
Dzingel scored his second of the game cut the lead to 3-2 with a one-timer from the left wall past Rask at 12:13 after the Bruins were caught with four skaters on the ice for several seconds.
Bergeron completed the hat trick at 4:38 of the third period to give the Bruins a 4-2 lead.
Ottawa had a two-man advantage for 1:16 after Bruins defenseman John Moore was called for roughing and Bergeron for delay of game, but were unable to capitalize.
Pastrnak extended the lead to 5-2 at 16:31 by driving to the net and redirecting Bergeron's pass past Condon.
Ryan scored 32 seconds later to make it 5-3 with a tip-in from the top of the crease, but Pastrnak scored an empty-net goal at 18:22 to make it 6-3.

They said it

"It's funny, you come out of this game, which, if you know, you watched last game, you watched this game, you know we were better this game than we were last game, and we won last game and we lost this one. But one thing's for sure, there's a lot of positives in both games." -- Senators coach Guy Boucher
"It's phenomenal. You see why guys are so connected with him and why he's such a great player in this League. He's not out there just cherry-picking and finding the easy ones. He works for every inch he gets, he's doing all the ugly stuff along with scoring the goals, and you can't be happier for a guy who's able to play a 200-foot game and is responsible defensively." -- Bruins forward David Backes on Patrice Bergeron

Need to know

Bergeron also had hat tricks against the Senators on Jan. 11, 2011, against the Carolina Hurricanes (four goals) on Jan. 6, 2018, and against the New York Islanders on Jan. 18, 2018. ... McAvoy's three assists were a career high for assists and points.

What's next

Senators:Host the Philadelphia Flyers on Wednesday (7:30 p.m. ET; SN, TVAS, NBCSP, NHL.TV)
Bruins: Host the Edmonton Oilers on Thursday (7 p.m. ET; TVAS, NESN, SNOL, NHL.TV)