Bruins bounce Tampa out of top spot in East

BOSTON — The Boston Bruins appear to be quite ready for the playoffs.

And the Tampa Bay Lightning are slumping at the wrong time of the season.

The top two teams in the Eastern Conference slugged it out Thursday night and Boston prevailed, knocking Tampa Bay out of first place for the first time since October with a 4-2 win on Thursday night.

“This definitely had a playoff feel to it,” said Brand Marchand, whose empty-net goal with 56 seconds left sealed it for the Bruins, who took over first place in the conference with less than two weeks remaining in the regular season.

“Obviously we all know how big it was for the standings and what it meant for both teams.”

Patrice Bergeron had a goal and two assists, Tim Schaller and David Pastrnak scored goals 32 seconds apart in the final minute of the first period and Tuukka Rask made 26 saves for the Bruins, who have 107 points and lead Tampa Bay by a point.

Boston has six games remaining in the regular season to five for Tampa Bay.

For the first time since Oct. 18, a team other than the Lightning leads the Eastern Conference.

“I think it means that we’ve been playing pretty good hockey the last couple of months,” said Rask, who also helped set the emotional tone by unloading a flurry of punches on Tampa Bay’s Cory Conacher during a scrum in the second.

It was one of many times in the game that post-season implications were apparent, including a rare fight for Pastrnak in the third period and several more battles before the officials had to separate both sides one final time – after the third-period buzzer.

“There was a ton of passion,” Tampa Bay’s Alex Killorn said. “There was a lot of hits and a lot of scrums after the whistle. It seems like it could potentially be a playoff matchup.”

J.T. Miller scored a power-play goal for Tampa Bay in the second and Victor Hedman added a goal in the third. Andrei Vasilevskiy finished with 26 saves for the Lightning, who have lost three straight and are 0-3 against the Bruins this season.

“Playing in here is always difficult,” Killorn said.