Bruins score 4 in 3rd period, pull away from Stars for 4th straight win

BOSTON -- Viktor Arvidsson scored his fifth NHL hat trick for the Boston Bruins, who scored four goals in the third period to pull away for a 6-3 win against the Dallas Stars at TD Garden on Tuesday.

It was Arvidsson's first hat trick since March 4, 2022, for the Los Angeles Kings, and his second straight three-point game. He had three assists in a 4-3 shootout win at the Columbus Blue Jackets on Sunday. 

“Good, obviously,” Arvidsson said about his hat trick. “It was three easy ones today, one two inches from the goal line and then two empty-netters. It’s good. It feels good.”

The hat trick also came on his daughter’s fifth birthday.

“It’s pretty cool I got a hat trick on her birthday,” he said. “She’ll be happy, for sure.”

Henri Jokiharju and Elias Lindholm each had a goal and an assist, and David Pastrnak had three assists for the Bruins (43-24-8), who have won six of seven, including four straight. Joonas Korpisalo made 13 saves.

Boston moved six points ahead of Columbus for the first wild card into the Stanley Cup Playoffs from the Eastern Conference.

Wyatt Johnston had a goal and an assist, and Jamie Benn and Matt Duchene scored for the Stars (44-19-12), who are 1-4-2 in their past seven and finished a four-game road trip 1-2-1. Jason Robertson had two assists, and Jake Oettinger made 17 saves.

Dallas remained six points ahead of the Minnesota Wild for second in the Central Division.

“Probably our worst of the road trip,” Duchene said. “We’re playing some desperate teams right now and they’re playing at a level that we’re not playing at right now, in terms of where our ‘A’ game is.”

Khusnutdinov put the Bruins up 1-0 at 9:58 of the first period. Jokiharju's slap shot from the right point deflected off Stars defenseman Esa Lindell in the slot to Khusnutdinov, who put a wrist shot between Oettinger's pads.

Arvidsson made it 2-0 at 18:51, tapping in Pastrnak's backdoor pass from below the goal line behind Oettinger as he battled in the crease.

Benn cut the deficit to 2-1 at 4:49 of the second period after sending a backhander in front from the right corner. The puck bounced off Johnston back to Benn, who went skate-to-stick and stuffed the puck under Korpisalo's right pad.

“It wasn’t one of our better games,” Dallas coach Glen Gulutzan said. “There are losses, and then there are losses where you get outplayed. In the first, they didn’t come out and overwhelm us, but they were up 2-0. We just didn’t do some things. We self-inflected some wounds, we lost some battles at key times and we got ourselves down. We had a better second and started to even the battlefield, as far as the hand-to-hand combat stuff, the little battles around the net and we got it 2-2.”

Duchene tied it 2-2 at 16:53 when he collected a loose puck from behind the net and lifted a shot high to the blocker side at the right post.

Lindholm's power-play goal gave Boston a 3-2 lead just 13 seconds into the third period. He took a backhand pass from Pastrnak in stride into the offensive zone and buried a wrist shot from the top of the right circle past Oettinger's blocker.

“It’s hard to play against us right now,” Lindholm said. “We’re reloading hard, closing quick and making it really hard on the other team. They had only 16 shots, and once they get the shots we obviously have two good goalies, so it’s been good.”

Jokiharju made it 4-2 at 5:51 with a wrist shot from the high slot to the glove side for his first goal with the Bruins.

Arvidsson scored an empty-net goal at 16:23 for a 5-2 lead.

Johnston brought the Stars to within 5-3 while on the power play at 19:02, lifting a backhand shot over Korpisalo's blocker from in front.

“Not enough,” Johnston said. “We’re playing a lot of hungry teams who are fighting for their lives. You can’t expect to be perfect and dominate a full 60 every day, but when we play our way more often than we don’t we’re really successful, so it’s just a matter of doing that.”

Arvidsson scored a second empty-net goal at 19:47 to complete the hat trick and secure the 6-3 final.

“We have fun together and we put a lot of emphasis on being hard on each other, and really pushing each other,” Arvidsson said. “In that regard, we’re really happy where we are, but we have a job to finish to get ready for the playoffs.”

The Bruins have seven games remaining, including five on the road where they are 15-14-7. Arvidsson admitted the team is playing with a lot of confidence, but needs to be better on the road.

“We’re going on a road trip and we’ve got to get the job done now,” he said. “We’ve got to start off good and just build and improve our game on the road."

For Dallas, five of its remaining seven games are on home ice.

“We obviously want to come back home and get ourselves back to where we need to be,” Duchene said. “We’ve got another level we can get back to. It’s normal after a streak to sag a little bit. We were neck-and-neck with Colorado and they pulled away from us a little bit. We’ve got seven left now and it’s time to ramp it up and ascending with our game going into the playoffs.”

NOTES: Pastrnak set a new career high for assists in a single season with 66, besting his previous high of 63 he had in 2023-24 and 2024-25. ... Arvidsson has nine points (five goals, four assists) in a four-game streak. ... With an assist, Boston forward Pavel Zacha set a new career high for points in a season with 60 (28 goals, 32 assists), besting his previous high of 59 which he set during the 2023-24 season. ... Pastrnak recorded his 106th multiassist game, tying David Krejci for sixth in franchise history. ... Oettinger played his 300th NHL game. ... Stars forward Michael Bunting did not play after leaving a 2-1 overtime loss at the Philadelphia Flyers on Sunday with a lower-body injury.