Sunday afternoon was going to be a tough test for the Boston Bruins.
The Easter Bunny brought Boston a hungry Philadelphia Flyers team looking to feast on the Bruins, who were on the second game of a matinee back-to-back. And as things began to play out at Wells Fargo Center, the B’s looked primed to kick off their three-game road trip with a loss.
Boston entered the contest without two key players in Riley Nash and Brandon Carlo. While Nash’s injury doesn’t appear to be too serious, Carlo reportedly sustained a broken left fibula, marking yet another tough blow to an already hobbled Bruins team. Zdeno Chara did make his return against the Flyers, but he hadn’t seen game action since March 13.
Despite all of the obstacles, including two two-goal deficits, the Black and Gold managed to stroll out of the City of Brotherly Love with a point. The Bruins flashed their patented late-game magic with a game-tying goal in the closing seconds of regulation, but Claude Giroux’s highlight-reel tally lifted Philly to a 4-3 overtime win.
Points are welcomed at any point in the season, but the one earned Sunday comes at a particularly important time for the Bruins. Boston now holds a two-point lead over the Tampa Bay Lightning atop the Atlantic Division and Eastern Conference. The tilt against the Bolts on Tuesday will be a tough one in itself, but Boston wraps up its final road trip of the regular season with a matchup against a Florida Panthers club fighting for their playoff lives. With this in mind, the point picked up against the Flyers become all the more crucial.
The Bruins control their own destiny with four games remaining on the regular-season docket, and judging from the team’s never-quit attitude, it’s tough not to imagine Boston doing what it needs to do to enter the Stanley Cup playoffs as the top team in the East.
Here are some other notes from Bruins-Flyers:
— Boston’s game-tying goal with 3.8 seconds remaining in regulation came courtesy of Patrice Bergeron, who picked up his 30th tally of the season. The veteran center has recorded 61 total points in 60 games this season.
— Bruins head coach Bruce Cassidy revealed Sunday that there’s hope Rick Nash will be able to play in at least one of the team’s final four regular-season games, per NBC Sports Boston’s Joe Haggerty.
— Elsewhere on the injury front, Cassidy acknowledged that Charlie McAvoy (knee) “has an opportunity” to play Tuesday against the Lightning, which would be the 20-year-old defenseman’s first game since March 3.
— Boston outshot Philadelphia by a 39-24 margin.
— Chara paced the Bruins in shorthanded time on ice at 2:56.
