B’s rally for OT win
Get act together late to top Flyers
After the Bruins’ vaunted power play took a night off in the B’s comeback win in Washington on Monday, the PP showed up just in time to give the B’s a 4-3 overtime victory over the Philadelphia Flyers on Wednesday.
With Scott Laughton in the box for a bad interference penalty with seven seconds left in regulation, Patrice Bergeron scored the winner, the B’s third powerplay goal. Davis Pastrnak had scored the previous three goals, including the equalizer with 15 seconds left in regulation.
Jake Voracek gave the Flyers their first lead of the game at 1:03 of the third. Shortly after a B’s powerplay ended, Jakub Zboril coughed up the puck behind the net and the Flyers went to work. Eventually Travis Sanheim found Voracek, whom the Bruins had lost track of at the side of the net, and he was was able to put it into a half empty net.
The Flyers then took a two-goal lead on a 2-on-1 at 8:41. After Charlie McAvoy could not keep the puck in at the right point, Laughton took off with Joel Farabee. He fed the former Boston University Terrier, who blasted a one-timer past Tuukka Rask to make it 3-1.
The B’s got one back on the power play at 12:05 after Nicolas Aube-Kubel closed his hand on the puck. Off the first faceoff after the call, Nick Ritchie made a nice short dish to Patrice Bergeron, who in turn fed David Pastrnak for his second goal of the game.
The B’s then got another power play with 2:01 left in regulation, but Hart made a tremendous save on a Ritchie redirection. The B’s kept on coming though, and finally tied the game with 15 seconds left, when Pastrnak completed the hat trick with when he followed up a rebound of a blocked Brad Marchand shot.
In their two previous games in Washington, the Bruins had fallen behind 3-0 to the Capitals and still managed to take three out of a possible four points in those contests. But the B’s focus on Wednesday seemed to be to deliver an early knockout — and they were oh so close to it.
As it was, the B’s scored just 12 seconds into the game. Patrice Bergeron won the opening faceoff back to Charlie McAvoy, who then flipped it up to Pastrnak on the left wing. Pastrnak easily danced around Shayne Gostisbehere and then tried to make a pass on his backhand, but it went off Ivan Provorov and past goalie Carter Hart for Pastrnak’s third goal in as many games.
The B’s then went for the jugular, but could not quite locate it. They forced seven Flyer turnovers in the period and had several excellent chances. They missed a couple of backdoor plays, with passes just eluding the sticks of Bergeron and Ritchie. Hart also did a great job of fighting through a heavy screen to glove a Connor Clifton shot earmarked for the far side.
The Flyers eventually did push back and Rask, who suffered through his first subpar outing of the season in the B’s overtime loss in Washington last Saturday, was up to the challenge.
Through the first 20 minutes, shots were even at 8-8, but that didn’t tell the story of the lopsided nature of the period.
At the start of the second, Ritchie created another great scoring chance for himself when he poked the puck away from Gostisbehere and got behind to take Craig Smith’s push pass. He cut to his backhand and had Hart beaten but grazed the post.
Pastrnak also made another terrific move on his off wing to walk in alone, but Hart flashed his left pad to stop his bid. Then, after Anton Blidh took the first penalty of the game, Sean Kuraly couldn’t beat Hart on a shorthanded breakaway.
If the Bruins were armweary from all their chances it would have been understandable. And wouldn’t you know, the Flyers were able to tie it up at 15:29. McAvoy’s stick broke when he locked up with Kevin Hayes — it wasn’t quite a slash — and the B’s were caught running around their zone because of it. Eventually, one-timed a Travis Sanheim pass that Rask got his glove on but couldn’t prevent it from going in.
The B’s got their first power play when James van Riemsdyk was whistled for slashing Kevan Miller with 1:35 in the second. But the B’s could not capitalize on the advantage before the horn sounded and then went into the third with 25 seconds left on the PP and the score deadlocked at 1-1.