Bruins Blow 5-2 Lead And Lose 6-5 To Flyers In Shootout

Philadelphia Flyers defenseman Travis Seinheim scored the game-tying goal with 7:02 left in regulation, Travis Konecny scored in the fifth round of the shootout and the Flyers capped off a three-goal comeback to beat the Boston Bruins 6-5 in a shootout and snap their three-game win streak.

The Bruins may just want to forfeit the extra point when they head to their next shootout as they’re now 0-7 when the game reaches that point. In a shootout attempt that encapsulated the final two periods for the Boston Bruins, forward Brad Marchand bungled the puck off the go, just grazing it and moving forward without it, just as the Bruins failed to move forward from going up 5-2 with 7:21 in the second period.

After David Krejci gave them that three-goal lead that proved not to be a cushion, the Bruins went into prevent mode, dropped back and let the Flyers take it to them, scoring two straight goals and out-shooting the Bruins 15-6 after Krejci’s second goal put them up by three goals. The Flyers tied it late in the third period and the Bruins were on their way to their second blown three-goal lead of the season after doing the same thing blowing a 4-1 lead and losing to the Florida Panthers 5-4 in a shootout on November 12.

Bruins goalie Jaro Halak looked off for a second straight game, allowing five goals on 39 Flyers shots but the Bruins were a turnover machine for the last two periods, blowing what should’ve been their fourth straight win. They finished with just six turnovers in the game, but they made too many mistakes after going up 5-2.

David Krejci scored two goals for the Bruins; Anders Bjork and Charlie Coyle each had a goal and an assist and David Pastrnak scored his league-leading 35th goal of the season. Danton Heinen had two helpers on the night as well.

In addition to Sanheim’s two goals, Kevin Hayes, Sean Couturier, and Connor Bunnaman also lit the lamp. Couturier also had two helpers. Flyers goalie Carter Hart made 26 saves in the win.  

Bjork got his first goal in nine games when he took a great feed from DeBrusk just inside the blue line and battled his way through Flyers defenseman Phillipe Myers to the net and deked out Hart for a 1-0 Bruins’ lead 4:15 into the opening frame. 

The Bruins would pad their lead later in the period when they took advantage of a tripping call to Flyers forward Michael Raffl at 15:30. Heinen got his first helper of the season and the Bruins extended their team-record powerplay streak to 14-straight games with Krejci’s tenth goal of the season at 16:49. Coyle had the secondary assist. 

Just 3:11 later though, Bergeron was slapped with a high-sticking double-minor for high-sticking Flyers forward Scott Laughton 18 minutes into the opening frame. The Flyers converted on the first half of the four-minute powerplay when Hayes scored his 14th of the season from Travis Konecny and James van Riemsdyk with just 1:38 left in the period.

The Bruins killed off the rest of the Bergeron penalty as the second period started. Just as the penalty ended, Bergeron hopped into the play as the Bruins broke in and seemed to distract the Flyers as Chara was able to start a tic-tac-toe to Brad Marchand and then to Pastrnak who finished it off with a smooth backhander through Hart’s five-hole for a 3-1 Bruins’ lead 33 ticks into the middle frame. 

The Flyers answered right back though as Sanheim got his sixth lamplighter of the season at 1:12 of the period to make it a one-goal game again. Couturier and Voracek got the helpers. 

The Bruins would strike back in a big way though as they got two goals in 2:31 when Coyle got his ninth of the season at 4:50 and Krejci got his 11th and second of the game at 7:21 to seemingly put the Bruins in command at 5-2 early in the second period. Heinen and Carlo got the assists on the Coyle goal and Bjork got the primary on the Krejci tally, while DeBrusk got his second helper of the game with the secondary.

The Bruins killed off a questionable Chris Wagner roughing call as he tried to simply pull Konecny away from Bruins defenseman Charlie McAvoy at 9:02. Just as the Bruins seemed to be on their way to a comfortable win though, they got too comfortable and the Flyers capitalized, scoring two goals in 1:34 to cut the Bruins lead to 5-4. Couturier got his 13th of the season from Voracek and Niskanen at 13:12 and Bunnaman lit the lamp for the first time this season and in his five-game old NHL career at 14:46. Mark Friedman and Robert Hagg got the helpers on the milestone goal for the Flyers rookie center. 

The Flyers killed off an early Niskanen interference call 28 ticks into the third period and the two teams traded chances for the rest of the final frame and at 12:58, Sanheim got his second goal of the game to tie it at five apiece. Sanheim pinched up the middle and buried a rebound of a Myers shot past Halak. Couturier got his second helper of the game as well.

The two teams went end-to-end in overtime with both Hart and Halak standing on their heads and Halak making the save of the game on Ivan Provorov as time wound down in overtime.