3 takeaways after Bruins snap losing to Ducks with third-period explosion

After beginning a four-game road trip with a 6-3 win over the San Jose Sharks on Tuesday night, the Boston Bruins had a couple of days off in Southern California before playing the front end of a back-to-back against the Anaheim Ducks on Friday night before visiting the Los Angeles Kings on Saturday night.

Head coach Marco Sturm said Thursday that backup goalie Michael DiPietro would play one of the two games; it was only a matter of which one. He opted for the first game against the Ducks, and it was the right choice. After allowing two goals seconds apart in the first period, he was unbelievable the rest of the game with 25 saves for his first career NHL win. Here are three takeaways after the Bruins improved to 6-2-0 with a fourth straight win and snapped a five-game losing streak to Anaheim.

Bruins bury themselves with a flat first period, but rebound

As we mentioned on Friday, not only do the Ducks own the Bruins with five straight wins, but they are coming off an embarrassing loss to the Calgary Flames at home on Tuesday night. It's Calgary's only win of the season to date. If you're the Black and Gold, you had to know that they were going to come out and dictate the play early and be an angry team. Apparently they didn't.

Stop me if you've heard this before. The Bruins started a game slowly and paid for it. Michael DiPietro got the start, his first in 13 days, and was sharp early in the game. However, as the opening period went along, you got the feeling that it was only a matter of time before Anaheim found the back of the net. Tim Washe scored on a flip shot from the point through a screen with 37 seconds left in the period, then Beckett Sennecke scored 21 seconds later on a net-front tip to double the lead.

Anaheim fired 14 shots on net in the opening 20 minutes, and if it weren't for DiPietro, it could have been a lot worse than 2-0. Zone exits, losing puck battles, no skating game of any kind; it was a dismal opening period for the Black and Gold. However, they then used their special teams to rally for the win.

Bruins win special teams battle

Outside of a game nine days ago against the Utah Mammoth, the Bruins' power play has been nothing short of a dumpster fire. All three strikes on the man advantage that night are the only three goals on the power play they had going into Friday night's game. That all changed in the second and third periods.

Trailing 2-0 early in the middle period, the Bruins got on the board when rookie defenseman Frederic Brunet scored on a shot through a screen that found its way into the net past Lukas Dostal for his first career NHL goal. In the third period, David Pastrnak tied the game on the power play when he banged home a loose puck. If that wasn't enough, Elias Lindholm gave the Bruins a 3-2 lead with a third power-play goal in the game and the second of the period. Now they need to start spreading them out more in other games.

As for the penalty kill, Nikita took not one, not two, but three minor penalties, two on the same play, but his teammates and DiPietro bailed him out by killing off all the opportunities. The number of penalties he's taken this season is concerning.

Matthew Poitras seals the win with impressive goal

After Lindholm gave the Bruins the lead, Matthew Poitras sealed the win with an impressive insurance goal. He appeared to send James Hagens away on a breakaway, but he ended up giving the puck back to Poitras, who made a nice move to beat Dostal for a 4-2 lead.

I'm not sure what the lineup is going to look like moving forward, but Sean Kuraly might not see the ice again in a game for a while unless an injury occurs. Poitras has been that good.

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