What started off as a rough night for Boston’s Tim Thomas turned into one of the best playoff goaltending performances of the season. Philadelphia jumped out to a quick 2-0 lead in the first period thanks to goals from James van Riemsdyk but Thomas settled in after that making 46 straight saves en route to a 52 save performance in a 3-2 Bruins overtime win.
The comeback began immediate in the first period as the Bruins settled down play right away and scored a pair of quick goals of their own to knot it up. Chris Kelly and Brad Marchand scored the goals and got the game locked down after one period. The rest of the way it would be Tim Thomas’ show as the Flyers came out inspired tonight. Be it from their embarrassing performance in Game 1 or from the roaring start before the game from Lauren Hart’s rendition of “God Bless America” the Flyers came to play tonight. In the end though, it would be Thomas’ skills that would keep them off the board the rest of the way into overtime.
In overtime, David Krejci ended things with a snipe shot that hit off the pipe in the back of the net. While officials originally said it was not a goal, replay confirmed rather quickly that Krejci had beaten Brian Boucher to give the Bruins a 3-2 win.
For Boston it was a resilient performance. The jump the Flyers had out of the gate with van Riemsdyk scoring just 29 seconds into the game and then following it up with his second goal nine minutes later the Bruins could’ve been on the ropes.
Instead, patience and more scatterbrained defensive play and iffy goaltending allowed them to tie it up. Kelly’s goal came on a play in front of the net where no defender was locked up with him and the initial shot came to him and Kelly had time to work around Boucher and put it home.
That kind of defensive work will not cut it and while the Flyers cut down on their coverage mistakes in a big way tonight compared to Game 1, the ones they did make cost them dearly. The Flyers aren’t quite in a desperate place yet, but with the series headed back to Boston and the Flyers in an 0-2 hole it’s not looking good for them.
Boston meanwhile is finding ways to get it done and tonight they owe all of that to Thomas. With the way van Riemsdyk was playing tonight it evoked the memories of John LeClair in a Flyers uniform. He played to his size and was a force throughout the game providing many scoring chances on top of his two goals. He and the rest of the Flyers will need to bring that effort forth again if they want to get back in this series.
While the Bruins power play is still goalless in the playoffs, talk of that is taking a backseat to how well they were able to resist everything that Philadelphia threw at them. Bruins fans sometimes hope that Thomas can be the guy to help steal them a game. They don’t have to look to hard now to find a defining game in his playoff career that he stole for them.
Here are the highlights from tonight’s game.