In what might be their most dramatic win of the season, the Bruins rallied from three goals down to beat the Blue Jackets in a shootout on Sunday.
On the final attempt, Viktor Arvidsson flipped a backhander over Jet Greaves to give Boston a 4-3 win over Columbus on the road in the game with huge playoff implications.
With eight games to go, Boston is in the No. 1 wild card position in the Eastern Conference with 92 points, four ahead of Columbus, which is in the No. 2 spot with 88. Ottawa , the first team out, has 86 with nine games left.
The Bruins looked non-competitive in the first period as Columbus pulled out to a 3-0 lead. Boston was better in the second, but didn’t score.
Charlie McAvoy got the Bruins on the board, 6:29 into the third and Pavel Zacha cut the score to 3-2 just over two minutes later.
Columbus held on until the final minute when Boone Jenner was called for tripping with 42 seconds left. Boston took advantage of the 6-on-4 with the goalie pulled. Zacha scored his second goal with 11 seconds left to force overtime.
Greaves deserved better stopping 35 shots in the game including six in overtime to force the shootout.
After Jeremy Swayman poked the puck away from Adam Fantilli to start the shootout, Fraser Minten put the Bruins head with a nifty wrist shot.
Neither team scored on their second try. Former Bruin Charlie Coyle kept his team alive with a quick flick by Swayman, setting Arvidsson up for the dramatic finish.
After starting Swayman in the second straight game of a back-to-back, a lot of coaches would have been tempted to take Swayman out after Boston fell behind 3-0 in the first, but Sturm stayed with him and was rewarded for it.
Swayman finished with 21 saves including two in overtime.
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