Patrice Bergeron scored twice in the second period as the Boston Bruins continued their roll with a 6-1 rout of the struggling New York Rangers Wednesday night at Madison Square Garden.

Bergeron recorded his fifth multi-goal game of the season by scoring Boston's third and fifth goals as the Bruins won for the ninth time in 11 games and improved to 18-1-3 in their last 22 games since Dec. 18. Bergeron has eight goals in his last nine games and 22 points in his last 16 contests.

Zdeno Chara scored the tiebreaking goal late in the first period and added an assist on Bergeron's second goal. Riley Nash scored the tying goal in the first, and Tim Schaller and Sean Kuraly also scored for Boston, which gave coach Bruce Cassidy a win on the one-year anniversary of replacing Claude Julien.

Backup goaltender Anton Khudobin stopped 21 shots for Boston.

Rick Nash, who recently was asked to waive a no-trade clause, scored the lone goal for the Rangers. New York lost its fourth straight since the All-Star break and fell for the eighth time in 11 games.

Henrik Lundqvist was pulled for the third time in the last two weeks after allowing four goals on 16 shots.

The Rangers took a short-lived 1-0 lead when Rick Nash broke past two defenders on a breakaway five minutes into the game. Just 2:54 later, Riley Nash tied it for Boston by converting a cross-crease feed from David Backes into the vacated side of the net.

Chara gave Boston the lead for good shortly after keeping the puck alive in the offensive zone. From behind the net, he stole the puck from New York defenseman Stephen Kampfer and eventually worked his way back to the high slot where his shot through traffic beat Lundqvist to the stick side with 3:51 left in the first.

Boston scored three times in a span of 6:13 in the second. Bergeron beat Lundqvist with a wrist shot 3:47 into the period and Schaller chased Lundqvist with a high shot off the crossbar from near the crease nearly four minutes later.

Bergeron scored his second goal during a New York power play by simply converting a nice pass through the crease from Brad Marchand and firing into the vacated net. Kuraly scored the final goal 6:34 into the third.

--Field Level Media