TAMPA, Fla. -- Brett Connolly found some redemption against the team that drafted him five years ago while the Tampa Bay Lightning continue to search for answers.

Connolly scored the go-ahead goal with a wrist shot that went high on the stick side against goalie Ben Bishop at 5:54 in the third period to give the Boston Bruins in a 3-1 win over the Lightning on Saturday.

"At the time of the game and to go up by a goal in the third period, it's obviously a good feeling," Connolly said. "And to do it against your old team makes it that much better."

Connolly was a first-round selection (sixth overall) for the Lightning in the 2010 NHL Draft. He was traded to the Bruins for two second-round picks at the trade deadline last season.

"I wanted to have a good game," Connolly said. "I wanted to play hard and most importantly I wanted to get a win."

Boston (6-3-1) earned its fifth straight road win. Bruins center Brad Marchand added an empty-net goal with 1:10 remaining in the game. He also had the assist on Connolly's goal.

"I thought our guys handled what they threw at us early in the game," Bruins coach Claude Julien said. "We weathered the storm and then we just seemed to keep getting better. Our forecheck, our determination, our battles....everything seemed to be there. We got great goaltending again."

Tampa Bay (5-5-2) took a 1-0 lead on a power-play goal from forward Nikita Kucherov, who scored his third goal of the season. Kucherov came in late to make give the Lightning a 3-on-2 advantage and sent a snap shot high on Bruins goalie Jonas Gustavsson.

"Everybody was looking for someone else to do it," Lightning coach Jon Cooper said. "Instead of themselves and when they were jumping all over us a little bit, we started trying to do too much individually. We put ourselves in positions where we were going to be in trouble,"

Boston tied the game at 1-1 at 16:53 of the first period when left wing Matt Beleskey made a great individual effort to send a shot past Bishop while on his knees.

"From the beginning of the year we said we were going to be a hard-working team and tonight we worked hard," Beleskey said. "Our forecheck was great and it paid off. On the goal, I just turned and fired."

Gustavsson, making a spot start for Tuukka Rask, had 21 saves and improved to 3-0-0 on the season. Bishop had 32 saves for the Lightning.

"We just can't go out and not give our best," Bishop said. "I think we have another notch and I think once we find that we'll be ok. We know where we are right now. It's one of those things where I don't think we're taking it easy on ourselves."

The Lightning have lost four straight (0-3-1) and have only scored two goals during that span.

"This team went to the finals last year because of how we played...our work ethic," Lightning center Steven Stamkos said. "We're not working hard enough to put ourselves in a position to win games."

NOTES: Lightning D Matthew Carle was a healthy scratch. He does not have a point this season in 11 games and has a minus-3 rating. Carle told the Tampa Bay Times that it was a coach's decision. "I'll let (Jon) Cooper make comments about that," Carle said. "Better coming from him than me. I'll let him speak to that." ... Lightning C Tyler Johnson was in the lineup after missing practice Friday with a "body maintenance" day. He played 20:24 of ice time on 24 shifts. Tampa Bay LW Jonathan Drouin (lower body) and C Cedric Paquette (ankle) were both out. ... The Bruins were 1-for-4 on the power play Saturday. Coming into the game, they were scoring 35.5 percent of the time on their power play, best in the NHL.