Going into this series, the obvious problem for the Philadelphia Flyers was their goaltending. That trend continued through the first two periods of today’s Game 1 match against the Boston Bruins, as Brian Boucher didn’t make it through the middle frame.
Boston 5, Philadelphia 2
The Bruins deserve credit for building this lead, though. As we discussed during the first intermission, the Nathan Horton-David Krejci-Milan Lucic line is more than the Flyers can handle. Krejci added another goal to his points total by deflecting an Adam McQuaid shot. The real heartbreaker came before that, though, as Mark Recchi gave the Bruins a 3-1 lead 2:33 into the middle frame.
Brad Marchand’s rebound goal made it 5-1, chasing Boucher from the Bruins’ net. It almost seemed like a light switch went off once Sergei Bobrovsky took Boucher’s place, though, as James van Riemsdyk scored his fifth goal of the playoffs just 16 seconds later to make it 5-2.
It’s not just the Flyers goaltending that is an issue, as the Bruins are winning most of the puck battles and that top line is just dominating Philadelphia right now. Really, the only negative for Boston is that their power play is still impotent, as they went 0-for-4 in the first two periods to bring their total to 0-for-25.
One must note that the Flyers have the firepower to come back, but three goals is a lot to ask in one period. They’ll need an early goal or two for this third period to be more than just a 20 minute opportunity to send messages for Game 2 and the series in general. Don’t assume that they can’t make a game of this one, though.