Bruins Push Past Flyers at TD Garden With Five-Goal Rally in Third Period, Collect Third Straight Win

BOSTON — The Boston Bruins left the Philadelphia Flyers behind in a wild third period.

Steve Kampfer broke a tie with 1:14 left in Boston's five-goal third to help the Bruins beat the Flyers 7-5 on Thursday night.

In a game that featured five lead changes, the Bruins rallied to beat the Flyers for their third straight victory. Boston is 7-1-3 in the last 11 games.

"We had to come from behind a couple of times," Bruins coach Claude Julien said. "When you beat a team like the Flyers, who are playing so well, you take the two points and appreciate it."

Philadelphia is 12-3-1 in its last 16 games and had a four-game winning streak snapped.

"The rivalry is building up again," Danny Briere said. "The last few years, the suspension, the Winter Classic, the comeback, those are all things that make it more of a rivalry and it's good."

Brad Marchand tied it at 5 at 11:26 of the third and Kampfer gave the Bruins the lead for good when he slapped in a shot that went inside the right post past a stunned Brian Boucher. Gregory Campbell added an empty-net goal to cap the scoring.

After Mark Recchi and Michael Ryder gave Boston a 4-3 lead with goals in the first 1:48 of the third, Briere and Sean O'Donnell scored in a 53-second span to give the Flyers a 5-4 lead with 12:19 left.

"There was a comeback early, a comeback late and it was a comeback the whole night really," Recchi said. "We just stayed composed and stayed with it and got a couple of big goals from some guys that were important."

Recchi scored the fluke goal of the night 38 seconds into the third when he cleared the puck in from center ice and eventually tapped it in. The puck took a funny bounce off the boards and bounced right in front of the net while Boucher was attempting to play it.

"They got a crazy bounce at the start of the period and they get another goal off a shot that Ryder tips in," Boucher said. "It was just one of those nights."

Zdeno Chara and Patrice Bergeron added goals for Boston. Jeff Carter, Nikolay Zherdev and Scott Hartnell also scored for Philadelphia.

Hartnell gave the Flyers a 1-0 lead when he batted a rebound out of the air past Bruins goalie Tim Thomas 3:34 into the game. Hartnell's goal snapped a streak of 10 straight goals for Boston spanning the third period against Pittsburgh on Monday night when the Bruins scored four, and a 6-0 win over Ottawa on Tuesday night.

"That was a roller coaster," Thomas said. "Sometimes the best laid plans don't work out that way and you have to roll with the punches."

Chara capitalized on a two-man advantage for Boston to tie at 1 with 1:44 remaining in the first.

Bergeron gave Boston the lead 45 seconds into the second period. Bergeron had a hat trick Tuesday and leads the Bruins with 33 points.

Zherdev and Carter scored for Philadelphia in the final 4:35 of the second to give the Flyers a 3-2 lead.

NOTES
Zherdev returned to the lineup after missing four games. … Hartnell has six golas in the last five games. … Briere and Bergeron extended their points streaks to five. … Milan Lucic missed his second game for the Bruins because of an undisclosed injury. … Ryder scored for the first time in eight games.