Tim Thomas played yet another exceptional playoff game and kept the Bruins in contention to beat Philadelphia on Saturday!
By Matt Noonan
It was one of those performances where fans walked away baffled by what they had witnessed. For those wearing black and gold, they were definitely content, but the ones sporting the orange and white were not happy one bit.
The Boston Bruins not only beat the to the Philadelphia Flyers 7-3 on Saturday, but also made Brian Boucher look incredibly vulnerable in net. The Bruins sent five pucks passed Boucher before he was pulled in the second period for Sergei Bobrovsky who allowed two goals himself. Both goaltenders seemed incredibly out of sync and saved 26 shots combined.
Although, would Philadelphia consider their goaltending a weak part of their team, especially after allowing seven goals to Boston? Absolutely, but the blame should also be shared by the Flyers defense for allowing the Bruins into their zone quite frequently.
Boston got on the board early, as David Krejci recorded his first of two goals at 1:52 in the first period. Boston celebrated their first point of the day, but those cheers were silenced 10 minutes later after Danny Briere recorded scored and tied the game, 1-1.
The Bruins though rebounded during the final minute of the opening period when Nathan Horton beat Boucher to give Boston a 2-1 advantage prior to the first intermission.
The Black and Gold never relinquished their lead during the second or third periods, as Krejci, Mark Recchi, Brad Marchand and Gregory Campbell goals helped keep Boston’s lead safe and secure.
“I don’t think there was ever any doubt before we started the series that we couldn’t skate with them,” Bruins head coach Claude Julien said to the media via NHL.com.
“I don’t think that was an issue and the bottom line is this is a big strong, physical team that really does a pretty good job once they get in your own in end. They do a pretty good job of finding ways to score goals, so we just had to be strong, we had to be smart and skating and fore-checking was part of our game plan and I thought our guys did a pretty good job”
Philadelphia scored during both the second and third periods, as James van Riemsdyk and Mike Richards prompted somewhat of a comeback that was certainly short lived.
Tim Thomas played tremendous and saved 31-of-34 shots between the pipes, but also, Boston struggled on the power play again and finished the game 0-for-5. Will the power play unit bounce back in Game 2 on Monday? We’ll see, but for the second year in a row, Boston came away victorious in Game 1 against Philadelphia.
