Bruins lay down the law

Courting trouble, they follow Julien's orders

After a two-goal burst to start the night devolved into giveaways, failed races for pucks, and ragged play, Claude Julien did what comes naturally to a coach disappointed with his team's play.

He let his players know it.

"It was kind of a wake-up call when he came in after the second," said Martin St. Pierre. "He challenged us. We had to rise up."

A dead-weight Ottawa club bumbled through the first five minutes as if eager to see first-year coach Craig Hartsburg, on the hot seat in Ottawa, replaced by the first intermission. But it was Julien who watched a pair of two-goal Bruin leads transform into a 3-3 third-period tie against the lowly Senators.

The Boston coach felt some sense of pleasure, however, in seeing his club shake off 35 minutes of a so-so performance and make the little plays that lead to victories: a spunky shift by a reconfigured fourth line that was followed by David Krejci's go-ahead goal; a well-placed dump by Marc Savard; and Chuck Kobasew's willingness to get belted that led to the winning goal.

The product: a 6-4 victory last night before 16,464 at TD Banknorth Garden to snap a two-game skid.

"It was either stop the hemorrhaging or continue the slide," Julien said. "You lose three in a row, your confidence certainly takes an even bigger beating. Losing this game would certainly have hurt us a lot more than we might think. Winning it, hopefully, will be what we need to get back to our game, play more like we did in the first half of the first period, and close the door like we did in the third."

In the second period, a 3-1 Boston lead vanished in less than a five-minute span. First, a Dennis Wideman giveaway led to a rush for forwards Jesse Winchester and Antoine Vermette. Manny Fernandez stuffed Vermette's shot, but Chris Kelly followed the play to trim Boston's lead to 3-2 at 10:08. At 14:32, after grinder Chris Neil (the tough guy helped spark his lifeless teammates by throwing down with Shawn Thornton at 8:47 of the first period) beat Wideman to a loose puck, the Bruins watched defenseman Brendan Bell find open ice at the far post for an easy tap-in.

"A lot of bad mistakes," Julien said. "If you look at the Wideman goal, just forcing plays and turning pucks over. Even tonight, our fourth line struggled at times and gave up two goals they should have been able to prevent. All those things put together made for a struggle."

Fittingly, it took some hard-hat grinding to swing the game back in Boston's favor. In the middle of the third period, Julien sent out a patchwork line of St. Pierre centering P.J. Axelsson and Petteri Nokelainen. They responded by putting in a solid shift rarely seen in the second period. The wingers forechecked along the walls and got the Ottawa defensemen turning. They got in the Senators' faces and finished their checks. When Matt Hunwick let go a shot, St. Pierre sprinted by and deflected the puck on goal, turned aside by goalie Martin Gerber's pad.

"Sometimes we've got to crash and bang," said St. Pierre. "It was a great shift. Couple scoring chances. Next thing you know, [Krejci] scores a great goal."

After captain Daniel Alfredsson lost the puck in the Ottawa zone, Krejci attacked the net and was stopped by Gerber (16 saves), but he tapped in his own rebound at 10:13 to bust the 3-3 tie.

"Made one move, I tried to make another one, they go in and score the winner," said Alfredsson. "It is my fault. I am trying to do too much."

It took heads-up plays by Savard and Kobasew to finish off the Senators. Savard, who assisted on Michael Ryder's second-period goal, floated a puck in deep, then chased down his dump-in. Bell retrieved the puck, but because of Savard's forechecking, the defenseman was forced to rim a pass around the boards for Jason Smith.

As the puck skittered around the wall, Kobasew, playing his first game on the No. 1 line, barreled down the boards to seal off the rim. Smith spotted Kobasew coming and hammered him, dropping Kobasew to the ice. But the collision allowed the puck to squirt onto the stick of Savard, who outwaited Gerber, forced the goalie to go down, then roofed one to give the Bruins a 5-3 lead (Axelsson added an empty-netter at 19:19 and Vermette scored Ottawa's fourth goal at 19:32).

"He took a good one there," said Savard with a smile. "I thought, 'Geez, I better put this one in, because he's not going to be a happy camper over there.' That was a great play by him to take. I thought when I looked at him, his nose was off his face after the goal. I said to him right away that it was all him. It was a big goal for the hockey team."

Fluto Shinzawa can be reached at fshinzawa@globe.com.