Boston Bruins win cracker with 6-5 SO victory over Philadelphia Flyers - NHL Update
Boston Bruins and Philadelphia Flyers played out in an encounter that will live long in everyone's memory as one of the best games of the 2011-12 NHL season, as Bruins just about edged out their opponents with a 6-5 shootout victory on Sunday, January 22nd,
2012.
Both teams' offences were at their dominant best as the packed crowd in the Wells Fargo Center saw a goal feast with ten goals scored just in regulation time.
Bruins won after a tense shootout as both teams for once failed to score in overtime to bring the Flyers back down to earth.
Bruins' goaltender, Tim Thomas made the game winning save after stuffing a shot from Wayne Simmonds.
The Bruins victory keeps them tied for the first spot in the Eastern Conference with the New York Rangers at 64 points as they move up to a 31-13-2 record.
The Flyers who came into the game with a 4-1 victory over the high flying New Jersey Devils were not able to build on that win as the defending Stanley Cup Champions just about managed to hold out for the win.
Philadelphia remains at the fourth spot with a 28-14-5 record and 61 points.
Bruins took the lead in the first period with a classic attack.
At 0:50, Tyler Seguin passed the puck to Brad Marchand on the left, who held off the defender to race into Flyers' half.
Marchand then sent a centring pass towards the incoming Patrice Bergeron who made it look easy as he beat Ilya Bryzgalov from close range.
It took the Flyers just two minutes to get back in the game.
Kimmo Timonen sent a pass from his own half to Maxime Talbot who made a brilliant turn to beat the chasing Bruins' defenseman, and sent a shot towards the goal that deflected into the net.
This was not the end of the scoring as the Bruins late in the period scored two goals to get up to 3-1 on the score sheet.
Tyler Seguin who would go on to have a brilliant game got on the score sheet with a power play goal at 9:01 to put Bruins up by two goals to one and just three minutes later, Milan Lucic converted a David Krejci pass to put the defending Stanley Cup holders,
firmly in the driving seat.
Bruins' lead would not hold in the second period however, as they failed to take into account the brilliant form of Flyers' forward, Scott Hartnell.
Hartnell went on a rampage in the second period, scoring a brilliant hat trick to give Flyers a lead for the first time during the game.
The forward scored his first goal of the night at 3:23 in the second period as he let lose a devastating shot on Tim Thomas’s goal on a power play to peg back Bruins' lead to 3-2.
Four minutes later Hartnell equalised for Flyers, collecting the puck from Claude Giroux and sending an accurate shot into the net.
Hartnell completed his hat trick in the final minute of the second period with a wonderfully executed power play goal, putting Flyers up, 4-3.
The Bruins regained the advantage in the third period scoring two quick fire goals in the first five minutes through David Krejci and Gregory Campbell to bring the score line to 5-4.
The Flyers never gave up hope and Maxime Talbot equalised the score at 5-5 on the power play at 10:38 to send the game to overtime.
With both teams failing to score in the overtime period the game had to be decided in a shootout and the Bruins took the lead after Krejci beat Bryzgalov on the first attempt.
Claude Giroux equalised for Flyers, but Bryzgalov failed to stop Seguin on the resultant attempt and Bruins took a 2-1 lead.
Thomas stopped Wayne Simmonds attempt to win the game for the Bruins.
Boston will now face off against the Washington Capitals on Tuesday while the Flyers will look to regain the initiative against Florida Panthers.
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