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Bruins 4, Penguins 3 (OT)

Bruins top Penguins with quick OT goal

Bruins defenseman Torey Krug scored just 34 seconds into overtime.Jim Davis/Globe Staff
Bruins4
Penguins3

Less than a second remained when the puck came off the stick of Sidney Crosby. The fractions ticked down as the puck slipped past Tuukka Rask. The clock showed 0.0.

Rask looked up, noticing the time.

“Really?” he thought. “That just happened?”

The referees convened over the video screen to determine whether Cam Neely’s frustration — NESN cameras showed him slamming his hand down — was warranted. It was, with 0.3 seconds left as the puck crossed the goal line, and the Bruins and Penguins were headed for more hockey at the TD Garden.

But not much more.

Just 34 seconds into overtime, Torey Krug took a feed from Brad Marchand behind the left circle, skated in toward the net, releasing the shot at the faceoff dot. He beat Marc-Andre Fleury, giving the Bruins their second consecutive overtime win, this one a 4-3 victory over the Penguins.

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“That’s the closest I’ve ever seen,” Rask said of the tying goal. “I think 0.3 seconds. That’s the technology nowadays. You can count seconds and 10ths of seconds. But, you know, we found our way back after, so that’s a good sign.”

It would have been easy for the Bruins to panic, to get distracted. They had, after all, taken the lead with 5:15 left in the third period, and given it up at the last possible moment. But, as Krug said, “There’s no room to sit back and sulk.”

“To me, when you get scored [on] like that late, it can be devastating for certain teams, but it just made us probably a little hungrier,” Bruins coach Claude Julien said. “We went out there and showed some character and ended it early.”

With the officials taking the time to review the goal, Johnny Boychuk said the team had a chance to “relax.” That might not always be the reaction to allowing a crushing last-second goal.

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“It was tough how that one made it into overtime,” said Reilly Smith, who scored his fifth of the season in the first period. “We were hoping to close out earlier, but it just shows the resiliency of this team. I think it’s something that when it happens early in the season, a team can build on it and use it as a steppingstone for when we get the tight games later in the season.”

The Bruins have become expert at winning close games of late, after David Krejci scored an overtime goal on Saturday against the Hurricanes. Both that goal and Monday’s came with three forwards and one defenseman on the ice in overtime, a strategy that seems to please most in the Boston dressing room.

“If you’re going to lose a game, you’d rather lose it trying hard than playing safe and going to a shootout,” Rask said. “I like the fact that we’re really trying to win these games and going out there with three forwards and stuff like that and creating chances.

“You might get the odd two-on-one, but that’s why I’m there.”

The Bruins had, in fact, already gotten what they thought would be the game-winner, as Zdeno Chara scored his fifth of the season (and first in five-on-five play) with 5:15 to go. That gave the Bruins the lead after James Neal had scored his second of the game at 11:09 of the third.

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But the Bruins had started the game in a 10-1 hole in shots on goal, with the Penguins taking control of the early action. As Rask said, “It’s a case of the Mondays, right?”

Boston picked it up in the second half of the first period, scoring twice.

The first goal came off the stick of Loui Eriksson, though it started with Brooks Orpik flailing on a shot.

The puck went to Carl Soderberg, who took off up the ice. Soderberg sent a cross-ice pass to Eriksson, who went around the defense (and between his legs), burying the backhander at 12:27.

The Bruins converted on another shot at 15:43, this one by Smith. Soderberg passed across the mouth of the goal and Smith picked up the puck coming down the left side. The secondary assist went to Eriksson, giving both of the resident Swedes 2 points each in the opening period.

But then Pittsburgh came back.

The Penguins got their first goal 37 seconds into the second period, as Neal sniped a shot past Rask, cutting the Bruins lead in half. And he wasn’t done. With Chara and Dougie Hamilton guarding the Crosby line, the line of Jussi Jokinen, Evgeni Malkin, and Neal had gotten chances all evening, and Neal converted again, beating Rask glove side.

“Overall, it was a tough night,” Julien said. “It was a grinding night and maybe tonight we weren’t totally on and we had to work hard to make things happen. Some nights are not as easy as others and tonight was one of those where we just had to grind it out because the sharpness just didn’t seem to be there.”

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Amalie Benjamin can be reached at abenjamin@globe.com. Follow her on Twitter @amaliebenjamin.