It is a good time for the Bruins to take a break. They have played seven games in the last 11 days and it showed on Saturday as they were a lackluster hockey team for two periods against the Panthers in Florida. Boston fought through the tired legs and was able to take away two points with a 3-2 shootout win.

Boston now has two weeks off for the 2010 Vancouver Olympics and can feel good about themselves with four straight wins to climb back into the playoff picture. The Bruins avoided embarrassment on Saturday as a team with any hopes for spring hockey needs to take advantage of lesser opponents (the Panthers have lost six straight and are “retooling” their roster). Yet, the Bruins had to come back after playing two tired periods and entered the third trailing 2-1 and were outshot 19-18.

But something snapped for Boston in the third and it dominated the period to tie the game on a Mark Recchi deflection goal and win it in the eighth sudden-death round of the shootout when Recchi beat Panthers’ goaltender Tomas Vokoun high to the glove side. Boston dumped 21 shots on Vokoun in the third to finish with 39.

“We looked tired, we looked tired even yesterday, that is why we skipped the morning skate,” coach Claude Julien told reporters. “We sucked it up in the third and found a way to win but certainly those first two periods weren’t too pretty.”

Tired or not, pretty or not, Saturday was a game that Boston probably would not have won a couple of weeks ago. The difference between playoff teams and teams “retooling “ for the future is that, no matter the circumstances, winning teams find ways to get on top. With an undefeated week, it looks like the Bruins are turning that corner headed into the stretch run.

Here is the Hat Trick of lessons from the Bruins fourth straight win:

THE TIMELESS ONE – RECCHI DOES IT ALL           

When Aaron Ward was shipped out of Boston last summer a lot of people asked “who is going to be the veteran go-to guy in the dressing room now?” the obvious answer was Recchi and the Bruins cannot be disappointed with the results.

On Saturday the veteran forward played his 1550th NHL game and moved into ninth place all-time on the games played list. To put that in retrospect, the closest people on the current Bruins roster on the games played list are Miroslav Satan with 1030 and then Derek Morris with 849.  So yeah, that is a lot of games under Recchi’s belt.

He continues to be productive and was the savior for Boston not once but twice against the Panthers. At 11:44 in the third, in the waning seconds of the Bruins only power play of the game, Recchi did his normal thing – camped out in front of the net and deflected a shot passed the goaltender. The shooter was Dennis Wideman and the goaltender was Vokoun but Recchi has done a version of that play so many times in the last 20 years that the specific names are trivial retrospect.

On the other hand, Recchi scoring a game-deciding goal in a shootout is not something the veteran has done much of in his career. The tally was his first of the season and second of his career as he pushes his lifetime total to a gaudy 2 for 14.

Recchi took a squirrely path down the clear stretch of shootout ice and crossed Vokoun before putting a wrist shot top shelf over the goaltender’s shoulder for the win. Recchi was the eighth shooter for Boston in the extended shootout and those are the only situations where he will ever get the nod.

“I worked in practice one day so I thought I would try it again today, so, I was fortunate,” Recchi told reporters. “It was just a little different movement to create different angles and get myself different options to shoot from and it worked tonight.”

SOMETHING ABOUT THE ROAD

Much to the chagrin of season ticket holders at TD Garden, the Bruins have played their grittiest hockey on the road this season. Before the 10-game losing streak the Boston had a California swing where it went 1-1-1 but beat one of the best teams in the league in the form of the Sharks.

“Before we left on the road trip we realized if we didn’t do well on this road trip we would be digging ourselves a real deep hole and one that would be hard to get out of,” Julien told reporters.

For the season the Bruins are 14-10-5 on the road (13-12-6 at home). It looks like they have better chemistry on the ice on the road than at home and certainly fair better in the shootout. Boston had not scored a single shootout goal in two games last week in the TD Garden but turned that around on the trip with shootout victories over Buffalo and Florida.

Perhaps it is the air at North Station or the public announcement system or the harsh media spotlight but when it comes to winning hockey games, the Bruins just do it better somewhere else. If the team does indeed make the playoffs that particular trait could come in handy.

MCQUAID PROVIDED THE SPARK

Of the 20 players on the active roster, Adam McQuaid is definitely number 20. The defenseman is, and will continue to be, a text message away from packing his bag and heading to Providence. With Johnny Boychuck and Mark Stuart likely to come back from injury after the break it appears that McQuaid had played his last game in a Boston uniform for at least the foreseeable future.

But the rookie composed himself well in the last week and can raise his head high for his role in turning the Bruins around after the dreadful first two periods.

At 15:06 in the second period McQuaid was hit a touch high (and perhaps a touch late) by Panthers’ forward Victor Oreskovich right in front of the Bruins bench. McQuaid did not like it, pushed Oreskovich and within second the two were fighting.

This was not a circle around the opposing pugilist and go in for a couple jabs type of fight (looking at you, Blake Wheeler) but rather a fierce flurry of fisticuffs worthy of any hockey player. The Bruins played with more pep after the fight and it was a good lead-in to the comeback third period.

“Well, it certainly didn’t hurt our hockey club,” Julien told reporters. “That is part of our image and what we have here and that is a young player coming in here and has done an outstanding job when he has been called upon. He stood tall for his teammates and showed that again tonight.”