Bruins’ “lucky bounce” extends Avs’ streak to 7

B OSTON» The Avalanche has lost games in a number of ways in what now is a seven-game streak in the wrong direction.

This time, it was on a lucky bounce.

Brad Marchand scored 4:03 into the extra period after his shot deflected off an opponent’s skate, extending the Boston Bruins’ points streak to seven games with a 2-1 victory Sunday.

Patrice Bergeron left the puck at the top of the right circle for Marchand, who skated into the slot and inadvertently used Matt Calvert’s skate to get the puck past goalie Semyon Varlamov.

Nathan MacKinnon scored his 29th goal for Colorado, tying Gabe Landeskog for the team lead. Varlamov had 33 saves as the Avs earned a point with a third straight overtime loss.

“Tonight’s just a wrist shot that happens to hit our guy’s foot and changes direction,” Colorado coach Jared Bednar said.

Colorado (22-22-11) fell 4-3 in OT at Washington on Thursday before losing by the same score Saturday against the Islanders in New York.

“This is kind of the luck we’ve been having with it,” Bednar said. “We’re working on it, we’re watching video on it, guys are paying attention to what we’re saying and defending hard 3on-3.”

Bednar called his team’s threegame points streak “a huge step forward,” but the sentiment differed inside the Avs’ locker room.

“It’s just not good enough,” Varlamov said. “We’ve got to find a way to win in overtime.”

Marchand extended his franchise record with his 14th career overtime goal.

“We got a lucky bounce, and we’ll take it,” Marchand said.

John Moore also scored and Jaroslav Halak made 35 saves for the Bruins, who improved to 40-3 in their last seven.

Boston (31-17-8) moved one point ahead of rival Montreal for third place in the Atlantic Division and trails second-place Toronto by a point.

“It was a needed point for us,” said Halak, who snapped a personal five-game skid. “The standing in our division, it’s tight, and it’s going to be a race until the end so we need to keep getting points right now.”

The Avalanche sit four points out of the second wild-card spot in the Western Conference.