Viktor Arvidsson scored twice in the third period to finish off his fifth career hat trick while Henri Jokiharju netted the game-winner, leading the Boston Bruins to a 6-3 win over the visiting Dallas Stars on Tuesday night.
The Bruins (43-24-8, 94 points) broke a 2-2 tie after two periods with four of the game’s final five goals, earning their fourth straight win and seventh in 10 games (7-1-2).
Jokiharju and Elias Lindholm each registered a goal and an assist, Marat Khusnutdinov also scored and David Pastrnak dished out three helpers for Boston.
Bruins goalie Joonas Korpisalo (13 saves) faced just three third-period shots as his team held a 23-16 advantage in that category.
Wyatt Johnston posted a goal and an assist, Matt Duchene and Jamie Benn also scored goals, and Jake Oettinger stopped 17 shots for Dallas (44-19-12, 100 points), which is just 1-4-2 in its last seven contests.
Lindholm needed just 13 seconds of third-period time to give the Bruins a 3-2 lead with a power-play goal, striding into the zone and up to the top of the right circle to laser a shot past Oettinger high to the blocker side.
A huge piece of insurance came in the form of Jokiharju’s first goal as a Bruin at 5:51. The defenseman snapped off a shot from the high slot after receiving a feed back from Lindholm who was marked well near the net front.
Just as Oettinger was exiting in favor of an extra attacker, Arvidsson scored an empty-net goal from beyond the defensive blue line with 3:37 left in regulation.
After Johnston’s tight backhand finish during a 6-on-4 sequence brought Dallas within 5-3 with 58 seconds left, Arvidsson finished his hat trick with another long try into an open goal.
Boston opened the scoring 9:58 into the first, as Khusnutdinov buried the rebound of a Jokiharju point shot that Oettinger sent back into the low slot.
Arvidsson made it a 2-0 game with 1:09 left in the first, redirecting Pastrnak’s centering pass from behind the goal line into the net.
The visitors clawed back into the game at 2-1 at 4:49 of the second. Benn followed up Johnston’s shot by banging in a loose puck around the crease.
With 3:07 left in the middle frame, a wide-open Duchene scooped the puck and tucked it glove-side from close range to level the score.
