Boston Bruins at Ottawa Senators

Giroux scores, Senators beat Bruins 7-5 in home opener

The 34-year-old Giroux signed with the Senators as a free agent in the offseason. He spent part of his childhood in Ottawa and has returned to the area for summers.

Brady Tkachuk, Drake Batherson and Tim Stutzle each had a goal and two assists for Ottawa. Mark Kastelic, Shane Pinto and Artem Zub also scored, and Anton Forsberg stopped 26 shots.

“Obviously, offensively we did all the things we wanted to do tonight, but clearly gave up too much,” Senators coach D.J. Smith said. “There was a lot of nerves, you could see it on the bench. … I thought we played really well in the first two games and didn’t get the results, so we’ll just take the win and move on.”

Coming into the home opener, Ottawa only had three goals in two road losses.

“It creates confidence for us,” Tkachuk said. “We faced adversity in those first two games and couldn’t get it done … it did tonight and all 20 of us took a step and went to the next level to get the job done.”

The Bruins dropped to 3-1. David Pastrnak and Patrice Bergeron each had a goal and two assists each, David Krejci, Nick Foligno and A.J. Greer also scored and Jeremy Swayman made 26 saves.

“These games happen every once in a while,” Pastrnak said. “It was obviously our third game in four days. We kept it positive. We came back twice.

"Hockey is a long season. It’s still early and these kinds of games are going to happen. You see it around the league all the time. Just sometimes the puck goes into the net both ways.”

UP NEXT

Bruins: Host Anaheim on Thursday night.

Senators: Host Washington on Thursday night.

OTT leads series 1-0