Bergeron, Bruins defeat Jets

WINNIPEG -- The Boston Bruins started a six-game road trip with a 6-2 win against the Winnipeg Jets at MTS Centre on Thursday.
The Bruins rebounded from a 9-2 home loss against the Los Angeles Kings on Tuesday using three first-period goals to build a lead that they never surrendered. They limited Winnipeg to six shots in the second half of the game.

"We talked about learning from that game and putting it in the past and moving forward," said Bruins center Patrice Bergeron, who scored twice. "That's all that we really can do. I thought that [Thursday] was a great response."
Boston (29-19-6) has won three of its past four games. The Bruins moved ahead of the Tampa Bay Lightning for third place in the Atlantic Division.

"It was a good response," Bruins coach Claude Julien said. "We found our game again, started being smart and doing the right things. I thought the [third period] was a really smart period."
"Outside of our dressing room, there were a lot of people wondering how we were going to react to that loss, but that was one game. We promised ourselves that we were going to have a good road trip here."
Winnipeg (24-27-3) has lost six of its past seven home games and eight of 10 (2-8-0). The Jets begin a four-game road trip on Saturday against the Edmonton Oilers.
Loui Eriksson, Brad Marchand, David Pastrnak and Jimmy Hayes scored for Boston. Brett Connolly had three assists on a line with Bergeron and Marchand. Tuukka Rask made 34 saves; he allowed five goals against Los Angeles.

Bryan Little and Nikolaj Ehlers scored for Winnipeg. Blake Wheeler had two assists. Connor Hellebuyck, who has not finished two of his past three starts, allowed three goals on 11 shot attempts in the first period before coach Paul Maurice replaced him with backup Michael Hutchinson at the start of the second. Hutchinson made 25 saves in relief.
"They turned it up to a level that we weren't able to get to in the second half of the game, and that was the difference," Wheeler said.
Maurice struggled to explain the Bruins' second-half takeover.
"The simplest [explanation] is they got faster, and we got slower," Maurice said. "We couldn't get to a puck, come up with a puck and when we did we couldn't move it quickly enough. I don't have an answer for why that changes."
"We came out right, and then we just didn't seem to have the pop in our step that we needed to win that game."

Bergeron gave the Bruins a 1-0 lead at 1:22 of the first period. Marchand broke loose from Winnipeg defenseman Mark Stuart in the low slot and set up a pass to Bergeron for an uncontested tap-in. Bergeron's 20th goal this season, the seventh time he's hit the 20-goal mark, ended a five-game goalless streak.
Little tied the game 1-1 at 3:29 when he drifted away from Boston's defense before putting a shot past Rask for his team-leading 17th goal. After eight games without a goal, Little has scored in each of his past two games.
After being outshot 13-3 to start the game, Boston took a 2-1 lead at 16:34. Eriksson drove to the net from the right corner and snapped a shot past Hellebuyck.
Winnipeg's first power play 56 seconds later erased Boston's lead. Ehlers scored his 13th goal this season on a shot from the bottom right circle.

Marchand scored a breakaway goal with 1:15 left in the first. His 26th goal this season extended his goal-scoring streak to five games (six goals); he has scored in 11 of his past 12 games.
"Any chance he gets, he buries nowadays," Julien said of Marchand, who also had two assists.
Winnipeg had the first 12 shots of the second period before Boston followed with 14 consecutive shots. The Bruins had 27 of the game's next 29 shots and the Jets went more than 17 minutes without a shot.
"It was a character win, but if you look at the way we played in the first 30 minutes, you're not going to win [many] games if you play like that," Rask said. "But it was a character win, we battled back and stuck with it."
After a scoreless second, Pastrnak's sixth goal this season 35 seconds into the third period extended Boston's lead to 4-2. Pastrnak skated down the right side, attempted a shot and put in his own rebound past Hutchinson's left pad.

"That one at the start of the third kind of killed us," Little said.
Bergeron's second goal of the game at 7:42 gave the Bruins a 5-2 lead. Hayes scored an empty-net goal with 4:48 left.
"I thought we just played a really sound game," Marchand said. "Whenever they scored a goal to come back, we bounced back and didn't panic. We did a really good job of having a killer instinct in the third period, so I'm really proud of the [team]. It was definitely a full team effort."
The Marchand-Bergeron-Connolly line combined for 15 shots, including nine from Bergeron.

"I think we just have a really good line now that is connecting," Marchand said. "If you look at all three goals that our line was on for, [Bergeron and Connolly] won battles, they competed hard and made a really good play, so I think that I'm just benefitting from that."
The Bruins continue their road trip Saturday against the Minnesota Wild.
"It was a huge start," Bergeron said. "That's what we wanted, but we know that there is a lot more to this road trip than just one game. Now we need to focus on Minnesota."