Philadelphia – This past weekend the Rangers played the Bruins and then the Bruins played the Flyers as a back-to-back game. The Flyers were also playing a back-to-back game since they had beaten the Devils the night before. Both teams were neither sluggish nor tired. As a matter of fact there were a few tilts and a lot of action.

The Bruins got the first goal when Marc-Andre Bourdon got beat on the wall and then Tyler Seguin made a great pass to Patrice Bergeron who was behind Wayne Simmonds but he didn’t get the stick down just 50 seconds into the first period.

Rookie Tom Sestito had a tilt with Milan Lucic which turned out to be a draw. Sestito was one of 8 rookies in the Flyers lineup.

The Flyers scored almost the same way on the other side and Max Talbot to Jakub Voracek who appeared to have tapped in the goal for the Flyers but it deflected off of Bruins defenseman Dennis Seidenberg to make it a 1-1 game at 2:05 of the first period.

Bruins star Seguin netted a goal getting his second point of the game when he snuck one past the Flyers goaltender at the 9:01 mark. Ben Holmstrom wasn’t close to the Bruins player.

Flyers rookie Brayden Schenn and Chris Kelly were fighting after Schenn knocked over Bruins defenseman Steven Kampfer as he was slow to back up to his feet. He never returned leaving the Bruins with just 5 defenseman.

At 12:30 Lucic came barreling down the ice and lanched an amazing wrist shot that caught the high far side of the net making it a 3-1 Bruins lead. There was a possible interference by Boston at the blueline that sprung the Bruins player loose.

Flyers netminder Ilya Bryzgalov seemed to rebound his play late in the period making a nice clear of a puck that Boston had a short-handed play on and a glove save on a Brad Marchand jam attempt.

The Flyers fought back with a power play goal at 3:23 when Scott Hartnell fired one past Thomas to make it a 3-2 game early in the second period.

Hartnell tied up this game up 3-3 after he took a fluky looking shot over Adam McQuaid and into the back of the net. The puck was shot on its end and it was a knuckler.
Bruins goalie Tim Thomas glove save on a Hartnell blast was as good as it gets. Shortly after Hartnell got the natural hat trick (the second of his career) when the Flyers were on the power play. The teams left the ice with 46.5 seconds to go because of all the debris on the ice.

"To see the smile on his face afterwards is special for me, obviously. He's probably watched a thousand or fifteen hundred games that I've played, traveled around Western Canada growing up and watched every game on the NHL Network. To have him here and have a good game personally is pretty nice," said Hartnell who dad and other Flyers' dads attented this game. Bill Hartnell is a teacher and principal for thirty years."

The horn sounded to cheers after the extra 46.5 seconds clicked off.

The game was tied up 4-4 when David Krejci scored off a deflection early in the third period.

The Bruins fifth goal was an easy cover up play that Daniel Paille shot in from an impossible angle and Greg Campbell knocked in the rebound at 4:59 of the final period.

Hartnell did have a hit possibly to the head and Boston’s Shawn Thornton and Hartnell scrapped. Thornton jumped him so he got the extra two minutes roughing giving the Flyers an important power play.

The Flyers did tie up the game once again when Talbot deflected in a shot from Matt Carle and it was 5-5 at 10:38 of the third period.

The Bruins won the game 6-5 in the shootout but there was a lot to learn here.

“Well there's a couple parts of that. First, with eight of them in the line-up, we'd actually kill the other guys if we didn't play them. Today was a great game for our rookies to be in because it was a tough game. It was a man's game out there--it was physical, you had to fight for every inch of space and every inch of ice out there,” said Flyers head coach, Peter Laviolette.

“Again, like they have all year, the young players, the rookies, proved their worth. I have absolutely no hesitation to throw those guys out there under any situation or any circumstance that comes up on the ice. I think that's really the only way that you get better and that you learn. You do prepare yourself for the playoffs to continually use them in situations. To their credit, they meet me back and they do the job on the ice that we ask them to do.”

The Flyers played the Bruins as tight as you could with a lot of key players out like Danny Briere, JVR, Chris Pronger, and Jaromir Jagr to name a few. The Bruins played most of that game with five defenseman (Zdeno Chara played over 31 minutes!). This game is the first that Thomas has given up 5 goals all season.

As far as the Rangers are concerned they played a great game against Boston, they also lost a defenseman, Ryan McDonagh late in the game and eventually cashed in on a 4-on-3 with time expiring in overtime. These matchups have all been vintage hockey and the goaltenders are the ones who have been taking the brunt of players in their face almost the entire game.

“Well, as a goalie I think I would prefer to win in the shootout if it was one to one or two to two or something. We need to improve, we know that. We played some really good hockey for the great majority of this year,” said Thomas. “We’re having some of these awkward games lately. We’re finding ways to get points and come out with wins in a lot of them, but its not Boston Bruins hockey. I don’t think we’re happy with our effort. It is nice before the all star break to have some wins underneath your belt to feel good about yourself. You want to do it the right way at the same time.”

Nathan Horton only played 11:51 when he didn’t return after a hit from Sestito. Did Lucic see the hit?

"I didn't. I was going for the puck. From what I hear, it was a bit of blind side so i'm sure the league will take a look at it and make the right call and go about it the way that they always do."

Bruins coach Claude Julien did.

"Yeah it was a blindside hit on Horton and honestly when you look back he got up and took a penalty, but we looked at the replay and when he's been through what he's been through last year with a blindside hit I don't blame him for doing his job. If I was in his shoes I'd probably have done the same thing. That's the thing with our team, he took care of his own stuff and you saw some other times where Kelly got over Thorny and stood up for him and that's what we do we stick up for each other. Sometimes it may get us in trouble but in the long run we're a team and we believe in our team concept."

It seems like the Eastern Conference Finals will go through Boston, Philadelphia or New York. Things should heat up even more after the All-Star break. The NHL this year is certainly a war of attrition.

Sestito pictured above. property of Sportsology