Boston, MA – Patrice Bergeron scored two goals, and the Boston Bruins overcame some lapses in lethargy to beat the struggling Florida Panthers, 4-1, at TD Garden.
Tuukka Rask made 29 saves for the Bruins, who have won four of their last five games.
Scott Clemmensen stopped 28 shots for Florida, which has dropped five straight games and eight of nine overall.
"He gave us a chance to win tonight," said Florida defenseman Brian Campbell. But we got behind and it's not easy coming back against a team like Boston."
The Bruins were very sluggish at times after jumping out to a 2-0 lead in the first period on goals by Zdeno Chara and Bergeron.
An early power-play in the second period presented Boston with a chance to pad its advantage.
The Bruins, however, wound up surrendering their first short-handed goal this season, as an errant pass at the blue line led to Shawn Matthias beating Rask with a backhander after a dogged effort at 3:10.
Boston regained a two-goal lead when Shawn Thornton circled the Florida net and buried a loose puck at the 12:43 mark of the third period.
Bergeron added an empty-netter with 58 seconds remaining.
Boston head coach Claude Julien said it was "certainly not the way we wanted to play or our best game."
Chara opened the scoring by letting a slap shot go from atop the left circle 3:55 into the game. Bergeron then finished off a pretty passing sequence by tapping in a feed from Brad Marchand with 5:04 left in the first.
Game Notes
Julien (246) moved into sole possession of second place on the Bruins' all- time coaching wins list. He had been tied with Milt Schmidt ... Art Ross holds the top spot with 361 victories ... Panthers head coach Kevin Dineen announced Thursday that forward Kris Versteeg will require season-ending knee surgery.
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