Bruins center Patrice Bergeron, playing just his second game since returning from a concussion, put together a memorable opening period, scoring a pair of unassisted goals to help stake Boston to a 3-0 lead on the Lightning in Game 4 in Tampa on Saturday.
Bergeron opened the scoring when he pounced on a loose puck at the side of the Tampa net after a Lightning turnover and jammed it home at 11:47. He made it 3-0 at 17:58 when he scored a shorthanded goal just seven seconds into Dennis Seidenberg's holding the stick penalty when he fired in a shot from the top of the left faceoff circle.
"Bergy has been good for us," Bruins coach Claude Julien said. "No issues with his game. That's the kind of player you rely on game in, game out. And you hope a lot of players take his example, because that's what we need. And that's what we didn't get tonight."
While Bergeron was one of the few Bruins to maintain his effort through the final two periods, the rest of the squad struggled mightily as Tampa rallied for five unanswered goals to take a 5-3 win and even the series at two games apiece.
"We got on our heels and we stopped playing our game," Bergeron said. "We stopped forechecking. They had so much speed, it's hard to defend. They have a lot of talent and they weren't going to quit. Obviously it was not the 40 minutes that we wanted and that's why we lost."
Bergeron still finished a plus-1 for the day in 18:47, as the only Tampa goal he was on the ice for was Martin St. Louis' empty-netter in the final minute. Bergeron had four shots and two hits and even went 11-9 on faceoffs. That's below his usual lofty standards, but he was the only Bruin with a winning record on draws in the game, as Boston won just 40 percent as a team.
That offered little solace for Bergeron, though, as he tried to quickly put this loss behind him and turn his focus to the task at hand. A trip to the Stanley Cup Finals now comes down to a best of three series with the Lightning, starting with Monday's Game 5 at the Garden.
"We can't feel sorry for ourselves," Bergeron said. "It's a long series. They're a good team. So are we. We want to make sure we go back to what was giving us success."
