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Bruins 4, Lightning 2

Bruins gave the Lightning a good fight, and took over first place

Bruins Postgame March 30
Bruins slipped oh-so-impressively into first place in the Eastern Conference with their 4-2 win over Tampa Bay.

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There’s still enough of the Big Bad Bruin memory rattling around the old West End for generations Baby Boomer and older to hold out hope that one night benches will clear on Causeway Street again, the ice will turn into a junkyard of scattered sticks and gloves and tattered shirts, and Garden rent-a-cops will ring the lower bowl to hold back the frothing, rabid masses.

Oh, how delightfully barbaric, and wonderfully entertaining, we once had it here in the Hub of Hockey.

It didn’t quite reach that level Thursday night, amid the Bruins slipping oh-so-impressively into first place in the Eastern Conference with their 4-2 win over Tampa Bay. It was, though, by current NHL standards, a bonafide doozy, including a rare flareup by Tuukka Rask (now 33-11-5) in which the Bruins goalie smacked Cory Conacher upside the head midway through the second period.

Conacher, after barreling into Rask in a pileup with Boston defenseman Brandon Carlo, straightened up, only to be greeted by a swift glovehand punch to the back of the head by the franchise Boston tender. The sellout crowd of 17,565 was woke, as was the rest of a Boston lineup well aware the Lightning had held ownership of first place in the East since Oct. 19 (back when the Bruins were a meager 3-3-0).

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By Rask’s own telling, it was a playoff game, despite the fact the chase for the Stanley Cup won’t start for another two weeks.

“I just had to let them know I’m there,” said Rask, objecting to a few physical shots the Bolts doled his way. “I threw a couple of punches and that’s it.”

Rask’s bold action, which bought Bolts goalie Andre Vasilevskiy the length of the ice for firsthand inspection, came with some risk. The Boston lead at the time stood at 2-1, on goals by Tim Schaller and David Pastrnak. If the penalties fell the wrong way, Tampa would have rolled out its No. 2-ranked power play and perhaps turned the score upside down.

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“I wasn’t thinking of that, obviously,” said Rask, drawing a chuckle from the media surrounding his locker. “I don’t do it too often, I guess.”

Bruins goalie Tuukka Rask (left) had to be restrained from going after the Lightning's Cory Conacher in the second period.John Tlumacki/Globe Staff

A good thing he was “emotionally engaged,” added Rask.

“Whatever I feel out there, you try to protect yourself,” he later said, as if then summoning his inner Gerry Cheevers. “Stuff happens in the heat of the moment. Hopefully I don’t start doing that every game. I doubt it. I have to go have a couple of beers now just to cool off.”

When the smoke cleared, the Bruins actually had the better of the referee’s whistle, staked to a two-minute power play. And the Lightning never were able to pull even. In the third period, Patrice Bergeron bumped the lead to 3-1 at 11:59, followed less than two minutes later by a Victor Hedman strike that cut to it 3-2. The jawkbreaker then came on Brad Marchand’s empty-netter at 19:04, with the Garden crowd then chanting, “We want the Cup!”

“We’re in the entertainment business, first of all, so we want to win,” said coach Bruce Cassidy, his club at the top of the heap now with a 48-17-11 record and 107 points, a single point ahead of Tampa (51-22-4). “And we would like to win with, you know, what Boston fans appreciate — hard work, blue collar, a certain level of pace and skill. They’ve become accustomed to that here . . . Listen, they pay a lot of money to see us play and I think our guys have performed well in this building. Hopefully they are happy with the product.”

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If the Bruins can hold serve over their final five games — to Tampa’s four — they will open the postseason on home ice against the weakest of the two wild cards in the East (the Devils as of Thursday morning). If the Bolts can slip back into first, then the Bruins would face the Maple Leafs in Round 1, the series likely to begin on Causeway Street. The club that finishes first is also assured home ice through the first three playoff rounds.

“The big thing for us is, we’re in the playoffs,” said Lightning coach Jon Cooper, whose club will face the Bruins again Tuesday night in Tampa. “But one of our goals was to try to get the division and we’ve got these guys one more time.”

The Bruins now have won all three meetings with Tampa this season, providing a mental edge into that last matchup at Amalie Arena. For whatever it’s worth, the momentum is with the Bruins, who have played at an amazing .771 clip (42-10-7) since their meager 6-7-4 start across the first six weeks.

“It gets guys going,” said defensmeman Torey Krug (two assists, 43 for the season), reflecting on the sight of Rask going off. “All of a sudden, you’re standing on the bench wondering what’s going on, and you see one of your superstar players getting going on the ice . . . someone you never see [fighting] . . . and it’s fun.”

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Ol’ timey hockey. The ghosts of Pie McKenzie and Wayne Cashman circled back around the old West End on a night first place was up for grabs. A sign, perhaps, that a delightful spring awaits.

Watch Tim Schaller’s first-period goal

Watch David Pastrnak’s first-period power-play goal

Watch Patrice Bergeron’s third-period goal


Kevin Paul Dupont can be reached at kevin.dupont@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @GlobeKPD.