Roundup: Bruins end four-game losing streak - USA TODAY

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Roundup: Bruins end four-game losing streak - USA TODAY Mar 18th 2012, 01:32 BOSTON (AP) – Tim Thomas only needed to make one more save to end the Boston Bruins' four-game losing streak and keep the defending Stanley Cup champions from falling even further down the Eastern Conference standings. By Michael Dwyer, AP Boston Bruins center Patrice Bergeron scores on Philadelphia's Ilya Bryzgalov in the shootout. After the first five skaters in the shootout all scored, Thomas turned aside Danny Briere as the Bruins recovered after blowing a two-goal lead to beat the Philadelphia Flyers 3-2 on Saturday. Tyler Seguin scored in regulation and in the shootout, and Patrice Bergeron had an assist and the game-deciding goal for Boston. "Sometimes when you lose in a shootout, you take it personally. But if you win you feel real good," said Thomas, who made 27 saves in regulation. "That was a hard, 65-minute effort today." Chris Kelly also scored for Boston, and Thomas made 27 saves in regulation and the five-minute overtime. Thomas, the reigning Vezina Trophy winner, is 6-0 in shootouts this season. Ilya Bryzgalov made 31 saves for the Flyers, who lost for just the second time in nine games. Matt Read and Jakub Voracek scored as Philadelphia rallied from a 2-0 deficit to force overtime. "We came back. That's a good point," forward Jaromir Jagr said. "Too bad we couldn't get the other one." The Bruins passed Ottawa and took over first place in the Northeast Division and the No. 2 seed in the Eastern Conference heading into the Senators' game against Toronto on Saturday night. "I think we know that time is running out. With 10 games left, we know that it's important to bring that kind of effort," Bruins coach Claude Julien said. "You want to make sure you're playing your best hockey when the playoffs start. We want to build to that, and we've got a lot of building to do." David Krejci and Seguin scored to open the shootout for Boston, answered by Read and Claude Giroux. Bergeron beat Bryzgalov on the stick side, leaving Briere with a chance to tie it. The Flyers center skated in quickly on Thomas but found himself too close to the crease. Pulling up, he put a weak shot right into Thomas to end it. The Bruins had allowed 21 goals over the last four games, losing all of them. They had given up the first goal in seven consecutive games. But they took the lead 6:23 into the first period when Kelly knocked in a rebound of Benoit Pouliot's shot. They made it 2-0 when Patrice Bergeron made a pass from behind the net to Seguin on the side of the crease and he put it in with 2:53 left in the first. "We knew they were going to be desperate," Flyers forward Scott Hartnell said. "They haven't been playing too well as of late. They haven't been getting many wins. We knew they were going to come out with a big effort. They smoked us the first half of the game." Hurricanes 5, Wild 3 ST. PAUL, Minn. —Tim Brent and Brandon Sutter scored in a 48-second span of the third period Saturday and Carolina rallied past Minnesota. Drayson Bowman scored twice and recorded an assist for the Hurricanes. Goaltender Brian Boucher made 21 saves for his first win of the season. Blues 3, Lightning 1 TAMPA, Fla. (AP) — Jaroslav Halak made 22 saves, Jaden Schwartz scored his first NHL goal, and St. Louis beat Tampa Bay. Halak had an in-close stop on league goals leader Steven Stamkos in the first, and made a glove save on Brett Connolly during a second-period breakaway. Schwartz, taken 14th overall in the 2010 entry draft and making his NHL debut, put St. Louis up 2-0 from just outside the crease on the power play with 35.5 seconds left in the first. Patrik Berglund and David Perron also scored for the Blues, who became the first NHL team (46-19-8) to reach 100 points this season. Brendan Mikkelson got a late third-period goal for Tampa Bay, which is seven points behind eighth-place Washington in the Eastern Conference Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. For more information about reprints & permissions, visit our FAQ's. To report corrections and clarifications, contact Standards Editor Brent Jones. For publication consideration in the newspaper, send comments to letters@usatoday.com. Include name, phone number, city and state for verification. To view our corrections, go to corrections.usatoday.com. USA TODAY is now using Facebook Comments on our stories and blog posts to provide an enhanced user experience. To post a comment, log into Facebook and then "Add" your comment. To report spam or abuse, click the "X" in the upper right corner of the comment box. To find out more, read the FAQ and Conversation Guidelines.  This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php#publishers. Five Filters recommends: Donate to Wikileaks.

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