BOSTON, Mass – The calendar may read May, but it feels an awful lot like “Groundhog Day” in Massachusetts. Its a year later and the Boston Bruins have taken a consecutive three games to none lead in the conference semifinals against the Philadelphia Flyers.
Tonight was a “must-win” game for the Flyers and instead of coming out and taking the initiative as they had in game three, Philadelphia found themselves down by a pair of goals just a bit over a minute into the contest. Boston out-played the Flyers in each and every category as they would come away with the 5-1 win.
Zdeno Chara’s blast just thirty seconds away began the onslaught. Just thirty-three seconds later it was 2-0 Boston when David Krejci and Milan Lucic worked a give-and-go. Krejci flung the puck below the goal line to Lucic. Lucic collected the puck and fired a back-hand pass to Krejci, who fired a wrister past Philadelphia netminder Brian Boucher.
The Flyers were stunned and coach Peter Laviolette was compelled to take his time out to settle his troops. The plan worked for awhile.
Boston would be held off the scoresheet for the next thirty minutes of play until Daniel Paille placed a shot under the crossbar. Nathan Horton then extended the lead to four less than two minutes later and that would be it for Boucher.
Chara rounded out the Bruins scoring with his second goal of the evening. The goal was the first power play goal scored by the Bruins in the 2011 playoffs.
On the other end of the ice Boston netminder Tim Thomas was stellar as he steered away 37 Flyers shots. The lone goal against Thomas came when Andrej Meszaros snuck into the Bruins zone and accepted a feed from Darroll Powe.
The Bruins will attempt to avoid another historical collapse when they host the Flyers on Friday evening.
Should they win that contest they will advance to the Eastern Conference finals against the Tampa Bay Lightning.
Both teams made lineup changes. Philadelphia inserted Jeff Carter into the lineup in place of Jody Shelley while Shane Hnidy took over the injured Adam McQuaid’s lineup spot. Carter played a regular shift, but Hnidy was nearly stapled to the Bruins bench as he participated in only 2:38 of play.
Contact Tom.Schettino@prohockeynews.com
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