most likely out for rest of the season because of a concussion, Patrice
Bergeron led the way for the banged-up Boston Bruins.
The new first-line center scored a
goal and had two assists in Boston's 5-1 victory (Live Blog | Box Score) over the Philadelphia
Flyers on Thursday night.
Tuukka Rask made 31 saves, and Mark
Recchi and David Krejci scored second-period goals along with Bergeron,
helping the Bruins inch higher in the Eastern Conference.
The Bruins, last in scoring in the
NHL, scored four or more goals for only the third time in the calendar
year. Bergeron has five points in four games.
"He led the way for us," Bruins
captain Zdeno Chara said about Bergeron. "It's really hard to replace
Marc. He's a unique player, an unbelievable playmaker. Patrice is
realizing he has to carry the offense, and he's doing a really good job.
He's really playing on top of his game."
Boston is 7-2-2 in its past 11 games
and has 72 points, within two of Philadelphia and Montreal for the sixth
seed. More importantly, the Bruins created some distance between the
idle New York Rangers (67 points) with 16 games remaining.
"We need to play like that every
night," defenseman Mark Stuart said. "Guys were winning battles and it
showed on the scoreboard. There aren't enough games left in the season
for us to take any nights off. We have to do exactly what we did
tonight. We have to play physical games."
Blake Wheeler scored the game's first
goal, when he took a center ice pass from Krejci, and flipped a backhand
shot over Michael Leighton's right shoulder.
Flyers center Jeff Carter tied it a
few seconds into a second-period power play. He deposited a faceoff
behind the net, then intercepted Stuart's clearing pass and sent a
slap shot past Rask.
Boston retook the lead less than 4
minutes later on Recchi's 20-foot wrist shot from just inside the
faceoff circle, assisted by Bergeron, beat Leighton.
Bergeron made it 3-1 at 10:30, when
he recovered a rebound off a shot by Matt Hunwick and scored from inside
the blue line. Forty-six seconds later, Krejci took a backhanded feed
from Michael Ryder and beat Leighton with a wrist shot, chasing the
goalie from the game. He entered the game with a 15-3-2 with a 2.28
goals-against average for the Flyers.
"We left Michael out to dry," said
coach Peter Laviolette, singling out the team's defense. "You go back
and look at the goals, our defense was porous. It didn't do what it
needed to do in front of our goaltender for us to be successful. We
didn't help our goaltender at all. Flying by guys, flying by the
puck. … We need to be better than that. It wasn't sharp. It's not where
it needs to be in order to win hockey games."
Marco Sturm scored Boston's fifth
goal, beating Brian Boucher in the third period.
The Flyers must recover for a
Saturday matinee against Chicago.
"We all need to be better, from me
all the way down," defenseman Chris Pronger said. "It was a very big
game. They were four points behind us and this was a chance for us to
distance ourselves from them. For whatever reason, [we] didn't come up
with a good effort at all. I think the last couple of games, we teased
ourselves with getting two wins [against] teams that are below us and
not playing very well. Fortunately, we were able to win those games, but
we didn't make it easy. Tonight it came back to haunt us."
Notes
Carter has nine points in his
past eight games. … Philadelphia's Danny Briere played in his 650th
NHL game. … The Bruins are one of two NHL franchises with a winning
record against the Flyers, at the 81-61-21-6. Montreal is the other. …
The loss snapped a five-game home winning streak for the Flyers.