Bruins capture wild, back-and-forth win over Sharks

BOSTON — Tickets to see the Bruins play on Causeway Street can be pretty expensive, but the folks at TD Garden got their money’s worth on Saturday night.

The Bruins lost two one-goal leads, fell behind by a goal, stormed back with three straight to take a two-goal lead before the Sharks cut it to one again. But the B’s hung on to capture a wildly entertaining 6-4 victory.

The third period itself was worth the price of admission.

The Sharks broke a 2-2 tie and took their first lead of the game at 4:03 of the third. Elias Lindholm took a slashing penalty at the Boston blue line and the Sharks made the B’s pay for the second time on the power play when Dmitry Orlov’s long-distance slapper beat Jeremy Swayman.

But the B’s would get it back. David Pastrnak took a tripping call in the neutral zone and the B’s killed it off, and as Pastrnak stepped out the box, JJ Peterka broke out of his zone. Peterka sent a cross-ice pass to Pastrnak on the right wing and Pastrnak buried his seventh of the year and 427th of his career at 8:27, tying him with Patrice Bergeron for third on the B’s all-time goal list.

Just 40 seconds later, the B’s had the lead again when rookie James Hagens jammed home a loose puck for his fourth of the season.

The Sharks’ Nolan Allen took a double minor shortly after that and Fraser Minten gave the B’s a two-goal lead when he cleaned up a rebound at 12:00.

But the Sharks would not go away. Hagens took a penalty to nullify the second Allen penalty and Will Smith buried a wrister at 12:27 on the 4-on-4.

Smith had a clean break-in after that but Swayman got his blocker on it to preserve the lead.

Finally, Will Borgen scored an empty-netter from his own zone with 27.2 seconds left to seal it.

This one had some buzz right from the get-go.

Eleven days removed from the Bruins’ 6-3 win in San Jose, the teams staged an entertaining, up-tempo first period.

At first it looked like the B’s were going to pick up where they left off from their 6-0 shellacking of the Nashville Predators when they took the first lead of the game at 3:08 on a dominant shift from the third line of Casey Mittelstadt, Lindholm and Hagens. Matched up against the Macklin Celebrini line, the B’s trio pinned the Sharks’ top line in their own zone for several scoring chances until a loose puck squirted out to Mittelstadt, who buried his fourth of the season past goalie Alex Nedeljkovic. It was also Mittelstadt’s 100th career tally.

But the Sharks, loaded with young talent, counter-punched well and pounced on mistakes. Minten’s cross-ice pass out high in the San Jose zone was off the mark and bounced out to the neutral zone, giving Mason Marchment a breakaway. With Morgan Geekie in pursuit, Marchment got off a shot that Swyaman stopped but Geekie was called for a slash.

Clicking at 25.7% on the power play coming into the game, the Sharks cashed in on the advantage. They tied it at 5:54 when Tyler Toffoli sent the puck down low to Adam Gaudette, who made a deft redirection of the puck to get it over to Michael Misa, who had an empty-net tap-in.

One of the many things the B’s had going for them on Thursday was that they stayed disciplined and didn’t give the Preds’ strong power play any chances when it mattered.

But the B’s tempted fate once more before the period was out when Minten took an offensive zone tripping penalty. They managed to kill off that one, but the power play seemed to give the Sharks some momentum. The B’s, who held a 12-11 shot advantage in the opening 20 minutes, were fortunate to get to the first intermission still tied.

The B’s got their first power play early in the second period but the only thing it produced was a nearly disastrous turnover by Frederic Brunet to Kiefer Sherwood. Swayman shut that chance down.

Then the B’s regained the lead on a tremendous shift by the Minten line that was not unlike the shift that produced the B’s first goal. The B’s won battles down low until Minten fed Geekie in the slot and Geekie in turn sent a backhand dish to Marat Khusnutdinov, who lifted a backhander over Nedeljkovic at 8:20.

When the B’s got their third PP of the period, Sherwood made the B’s pay for their carelessness. The Shark picked off a Lindholm pass, broke in alone and this time he beat Swayman with a high wrister to even it up at 2-2 at 13:34.

Things got rough at 15:37 when Mark Kastelic drilled Michael Kesselring into the boards. The Sharks were going to get a power play but Kesselring decided to go back at Kastelic and not only ate a few punches, but his actions wiped out what would have been a Sharks PP after he was called for roughing.

The B’s, who had an 11-6 shot advantage in the second, had numerous chances to get a third goal but several redirection attempts went wide and the game went into the third period all tied up.

The beefs continued early in the third period when Tanner Jeannot buried Zach Ostapchuk with a hit. Ostapchuk went back at Jeannot to fight the big Bruin, which proved to be a thankless task as Jeannot gave him a good pummeling at 2:38.

Jeannot tried to exhort the crowd as he made his way to the box but the game turned the wrong way for the B’s after that. It would eventually swing back in the B’s favor.