B’s make good point
Fight off fatigue, Flyers with late goal in OT loss
PHILADELPHIA — The Bruins came into the Wells Fargo Center yesterday down five regulars, fatigued from Saturday’s win over Florida and facing a desperate team fighting for a playoff berth.
The Bruins overcame all that and a two-goal deficit in the third period before falling 4-3 in overtime to the Flyers.
Claude Giroux scored his career-high 29th goal on a clean breakaway with 1:21 remaining in the 3-on-3 session to secure the win.
The Bruins gained a point to stand at 49-17-12 and remain two points up on Tampa Bay in the Eastern Conference. Because the Lightning lost 4-1 to Nashville last night, they will remain second to the B’s in the Atlantic Division going into tomorrow night’s clash of the top two clubs in the conference at Amalie Arena.
Philly improved to 40-2514 and remains in contention for a wild card slot.
“I think we were running on fumes and it showed,” Bruins coach Bruce Cassidy said. “This was one of those games you hope a couple of things will happen and maybe someone will step up and have an outstanding game or maybe your goaltender or your power play gets hot and gets three goals.
“At the end of the day it was a team effort to get us the point. This was not a bad result for us especially with all the hockey we have played. We have four (games) coming up in six days to finish the year but it is what it is.”
The Bruins needed a phenomenal empty net effort in the closing seconds just to force overtime. They tied the game 3-3 with 3.9 seconds remaining on Patrice Bergeron’s 30th goal of the season.
“To keep the puck alive and we didn’t quit on it that’s for sure,” Cassidy said of the final sequence. “It looked like they were going to get it out (of the zone) a few times but we stayed on it in the right spots.”
Torey Krug made a huge stop along the blue line to keep the puck in the Flyers zone with time winding down. The puck touched several Bruins sticks in the scrum before David Backes got it to Bergeron for the goal.
“To be honest it has been awhile where we have had to pull the goalie late to try and get one and get our team back into it,” Krug said. “It gives us some confidence moving forward because it is going to happen in the playoffs.
“We are going to have to score a desperation goal at some point.”
The Flyers took a 3-1 lead on a breakaway goal by center Nolan Patrick at 5:31 of the third. Patrick got around Zdeno Chara, went to the forehand and beat Anton Khudobin (20 saves) high to the glove side for his 11th of the season.
The B’s climbed back to within a goal when David Pastrnak, who had been unlucky on previous bids, scored on the power play at 6:54. Pastrnak stopped a clearing pass at the point, skated deep into the circle and fired a bad angle shot that deflected off a skate and by Petr Mrazek (36 saves) for his 33rd of the season.
“Still territorially I thought we did really well in terms of play but the chances we gave up were kind of high end,” Cassidy said. “They got behind our (defense) where normally we are reloading better and shut those plays down.”