Bruins Fall 4-1 Again, This Time To Flyers In Round-Robin Opener

The Boston Bruins looked flat again in a 4-1 loss to the Philadelphia Flyers in their round-robin opener Sunday afternoon at Scotiabank Arena in Toronto. Flyers forward Michael Raffl had a goal and an assist and goalie Carter Hart finished with 34 saves in his playoff debut. Last-minute Bruins starter Jaro Halak made 25 saves and forward Chris Wagner had the lone Bruins goal. 

The Bruins actually looked great in the first period as their tempo was there and their game was much sharper as they headed to the first intermission tied at zero. The next two periods though looked a lot more like the first two of the Bruins’ 4-1 exhibition loss to the Columbus Blue Jackets this past Thursday. The Bruins suddenly broke down in the neutral zone and just veered away from their system. The Flyers were more than happy to oblige. 

Raffl got the Flyers on the board at 5:33 of the middle frame as he buried a nice feed in front from Travis Sanheim to make it 1-0. Raffl found his way onto the scoresheet again just under four minutes later when he found former Bruins forward Nate Thompson for a 2-0 lead at 9:31 of the second period. Igor Provorov grabbed the secondary assist. 

The Bruins seemed to wake up a bit later in the period and forward Chris Wagner’s hard work down low led to a wraparound goal to cut the lead to 2-1 Flyers. The momentum didn’t last long though as just eight seconds later, Flyers defenseman Phillipe Myers extended the lead back to two goals, and that appeared to be the pin that popped any balloon of energy for the Bruins. 

The Flyers would get the next eight shots in the game carrying into the third period and one of those shots, by Flyers forward Scott Laughton, beat Halak at 4:07 of the final frame. The Bruins would make somewhat of a late push but similar to most of the game, both at even strength and on the power play(0-for-3), they simply didn’t have it again.