Bruins beat Sabres behind Marchand's OT penalty shot

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BOSTON – Brad Marchand continues to carry the Bruins on his back through a crazy stretch of production.

This time Marchand drew a call for a penalty shot in overtime after intercepting a pass from Rasmus Ristolainen, and then buried the backhanded bid on the overtime penalty shot chance for a 2-1 win in the 3-on-3 OT at TD Garden. The goal was Marchand’s team-leading 24th of the season, and his ninth goal in his last nine games during crunch time.

It was also a much-needed home win at TD Garden as the B’s lift their record to 12-13-3 on the season while sweeping the Sabres in the home-and-home series.

The Bruins came out strong in the first period, and got some offense from a trio of players that hadn’t dotted the score sheet much lately. David Pastrnak forced Cody Franson into a turnover to the stick of David Krejci, and he quickly passed to Pastrnak, who found Eriksson camped out all alone in front of the net. The Eriksson score snapped a nine game goal-scoring drought, and provided much-needed points for all three players going through a bit of an offensive slowdown.

The Sabres tied it up in the second period after Brett Connolly missed on wide open chance in front with Robin Lehner down and out in the crease. Instead Connolly couldn’t clear a puck at the blue line, and that eventually turned into rookie Sam Reinhart’s 14th goal of the season cleaning up a Jamie McGinn rebound.

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