Boston Bruins end six-game losing streak with stunning overtime win over Panthers

The Bruins gut-out a huge win over the Panthers on Saturday afternoon in overtime.

Hockey is a game of inches. The Boston Bruins found that out the hard way on Saturday afternoon.

Leading the Florida Panthers 3-2 with less than 30 seconds left, disaster struck by inches. Literally. After the puck went out to center ice out of the Boston zone, David Pastrnak lofted a shot toward an empty Panthers net only to have it slide and hit the post for an icing. On the ensuing face-off, the Bruins were not able to clear the puck and Sam Reinhart was able to get a knuckleball up in the air that went over Jeremy Swayman and by the hand of defenseman Jordan Oesterle with 2.8 seconds left to force overtime with the tying goal.

In overtime, turnabout ifs fair play, no? After Sam Bennett was called for a hihg-sticking penalty when he got his stick in the face of Charlie McAvoy for a two-minute minor. With the clock winding down in overtime, David Pastrnak's pass deflected off of Reinhart's stick and into the net with 1.2 seconds remaining for the victory to snap their six-game losing streak Saturday afternoon.

The win comes after a Friday of turmoil with media reports regarding the Bruins locker room. What do they do? They respond with a rod win over the Stanley Cup champs and Pastrnak nets two goals.

Bruins end losing streak with overtime win over Panthers

With the way things have been going lately for the Black and Gold, it would have been easy to see them losing again in overtime. Honestly, when it went to overtime, did you think it was going to end any other way? It would have been fitting, however, maybe this is something we can look back on and say they turned a corner in their season here. Or, maybe not either.

Swayman was the main reason as to why they were able to pick up the win with a huge 39-save performance. He had two saves in overtime before Boston got on the power play. Even bigger than the win was the fact that the Bruins scored on the power play with Morgan Geekie opening the scoring in the first period with the first of man-advantage strikes.

If there was a team that needed a win like this, it was the Bruins who return home to host the Tampa Bay Lightning on Tuesday night in a rematch of Thursday night's 4-1 loss at Amalie Arena. Seeing the Bruins' response will be very interesting, to say the least.