Recchi scores in 8th round of shootout to lift Bruins over Panthers, 3-2

Recchi’s shootout goal lifts Bruins over Panthers

SUNRISE, Fla. — Even at 42 years old, Mark Recchi showed that he still has a new trick or two up his sleeve.

Recchi scored in the eighth round of the shootout to lift the Boston Bruins to their fourth win in a row with a 3-2 victory over the Florida Panthers on Saturday night.

The veteran was 0 for 3 in shootouts this season before he beat Tomas Vokoun by faking going to his backhand before switching to the forehand and flipping the puck high into the net.

Recchi came up with the move after getting some advice from Bruins assistant coach Geoff Ward and trying it out in practice against goaltender Tim Thomas.

“I just about threw Timmy in the corner, so I thought I’d try it again,” Recchi said. “Hopefully, I found a little key because I haven’t been very successful.”

David Krejci and Marc Savard also scored in the shootout for Boston when a save would have given the Panthers the victory.

“It was a long one, longest one I’ve ever been in,” Bruins goalie Tuukka Rask said of the shootout. “The guys bailed me out a couple of times and I just tried to give us a chance. Then Recchi made a veteran move there.”

The Panthers, who have lost five in a row, took leads in the top half of the third and seventh rounds thanks to goals by David Booth and Kamil Kreps.

“You don’t get much for effort in this league,” Panthers captain Bryan McCabe said. “We just have to find a way to put teams away when we have them down and we don’t seem to be able to do that right now.”

Recchi and Krejci also scored in regulation for Boston, which lost 10 in a row before its winning streak. Dennis Wideman had two assists.

Nick Tarnasky and Stephen Weiss scored in regulation for the Panthers, who have scored fewer than three goals in 13 straight games, the longest such stretch in team history.

“We have to try to get that third one, and even a fourth, and put them away,” Weiss said. “We let them hang around and they were able to get one late on the power play, then the shootout’s 50-50.”

The game was the last for both teams before the two-week Olympic break.

Rask, making his sixth consecutive start for the Bruins, made 26 saves.

Vokoun, who will play for the Czech Republic in the Olympics, made his 21st consecutive start for the Panthers and stopped 37 shots.

Boston trailed 2-1 in the third period before Recchi tied it with a power-play goal at 11:44. With Weiss in the penalty box for tripping, Recchi tipped Wideman’s wrist shot from the point.

Tarnasky opened the scoring at 10:13 with his first goal of the season and only his 13th in 225 career games.

Weiss gave Florida a 2-1 lead with a spectacular goal at 18:54 of the first period. It came on the power play, with the Panthers mired in a 3-for-49 slump with the man advantage.

Weiss went end-to-end on his 21st goal of the season, which set a new career high. After crossing the Boston blue line, he got by defenseman Zdeno Chara by slipping the puck between his legs, then beat Rask with a backhand-to-forehand deke.

“I just had good speed and I wanted to go as far as I could,” Weiss said. “I wanted to try to challenge the D-man and I was able to sneak through and put it in.”

Boston tied the game at 15:54 when Vokoun let Krejci’s harmless wrist shot from the corner trickle through his pads.

“I thought they came at us pretty hard in the first couple of periods, winning the races, winning the battles,” Bruins coach Claude Julien said. “I thought it was two of our worst periods in a long, long time. We didn’t practice this morning because we looked tired even yesterday and obviously we were.

“I didn’t think we were very good, but we sucked it up in the third and found a way to win because we knew how important it was.”

NOTES: Krejci’s goal snapped Vokoun’s shutout streak against Boston at 147:17, dating back to Dec. 6, 2008. … Weiss’ previous career high of 20 goals was set in 2006-07. … This was the first time in six games the Bruins did not take a 2-0 lead. … Bruins RW Miroslav Satan did not play because of a hand injury sustained in Thursday’s victory at Tampa Bay. … Panthers LW Rostislav Olesz missed the game because of a broken finger. … Florida entered the game last in the NHL on the power play, while Boston was first in penalty killing.