As the Boston Bruins continue to roll with seven straight wins, so too do the rematches.
After banking back-to-back 5-3 wins over the Toronto Maple Leafs, the Bruins will start a two-game Canadian trip against another Atlantic Division foe in the Ottawa Senators on Thursday night.
It will be the teams’ third meeting in an 18-day span.
Tuesday’s triumph over Toronto came with a milestone for David Pastrnak, who became the sixth 400-goal scorer in Bruins history with a two-goal, one-assist effort.
“Pasta is obviously a special player. To score 400 goals in this league is pretty amazing, so we’re all really happy for him reaching that milestone,” Boston coach Marco Sturm said. “Knowing him, he’s probably been thinking about that one for a long, long time.”
Pastrnak’s 400th tally, in the second period, was the eventual game-winner. After the Maple Leafs rallied to cut a 4-1 deficit to 4-3, he scored No. 401 on a third-period power play. The star winger also scored the winner on Saturday against Toronto to end a three-game goal drought.
Pastrnak joins Johnny Bucyk, Phil Esposito, Patrice Bergeron, Brad Marchand and Rick Middleton as Bruins to reach the plateau — an achievement Pastrnak finds hard to fathom.
“They are legends, big names, great goal scorers, great players, great human beings for the city. It’s something that will sink in a little bit later, maybe when I retire,” Pastrnak said. “Now, when you are in the game, you focus and flip the page on to the next day.”
Aside from Pastrnak, Hampus Lindholm and Alex Steeves scored their first goals of the season, and Pavel Zacha also struck as part of the Bruins’ third five-goal outburst of their winning streak.
“I think we’ve been playing some great hockey,” Lindholm said. “We’ve really started to figure out what’s going to be successful for us, our identity as a group. I think if we stick to it, we make it hard for teams.”
The Senators are amid a six-game point streak (3-0-3) and have reached overtime five times during that span, including in a pair of 3-2 losses to the Dallas Stars on Tuesday and the Bruins on Nov. 6.
Coach Travis Green’s club left a point on the table on Tuesday, having lost a 2-0 lead — built on goals by Drake Batherson and Nick Jensen — by allowing Dallas to score in the second, third and overtime periods.
“We’re not sitting here surprised we played well. It was a hard-fought game,” Green said. “When you play good teams, I thought we had some chances to put the game away and we gave them new life.”
Former Boston goaltender Linus Ullmark made 16 of his 30 saves in the third. He has an .870 save percentage this season while shouldering a heavy workload.
Ullmark’s 14th start in Ottawa’s 17 games came a day after he received a vote of confidence from Steve Staios, the team’s president of hockey operations and general manager.
“He’s such a good goalie. Kept us in it all night,” Batherson said.
The loss also came with a cost. Defenseman Thomas Chabot left the game with an upper-body injury in the first period and did not return, which forced Jake Sanderson to play a whopping 29 minutes.
Chabot will not play on Thursday as he undergoes further testing.
“Chabot is a big part of this group. He eats up a lot of minutes against a lot of good players,” Jensen said. “When guys have to step up and fill those shoes, I have a lot of confidence in our defense core.”
