Bruins Score Early, Leave Flyers in the Dust

It only took a little more than a minute for the Bruins to score all the goals they would need in Game 3 Wednesday night.

Zdeno Chara and David Krejci scored in the opening 63 seconds, and the Bruins added two more goals in a 95-second span in the second period to beat the Flyers 5-1 and take a 3-0 lead in the Eastern Conference semifinals.

One year after watching their 3-0 series lead disappear in an unprecedented collapse, the Bruins again moved one game from sweeping Philadelphia in the conference semis. This year they have a chance to do it at home, with Game 4 on Friday night at the TD Garden.

Goalie Tim Thomas was brilliant again making 37 saves for Boston, which hasn't reached the conference finals since 1992.

Brian Boucher was the opposite for Philly, allowing four goals on 20 shots before being pulled for Sergei Bobrovsky late in the second period.

"It's not the start that we envisioned. You want to get off to a good start, and it didn't happen today," Boucher said. "It's my job to try to stop the puck, and after that we settled down a bit. It's 2-0 and it got away from us there late in the second. It's definitely disappointing."

Defenseman Andrej Meszaros was the only Flyer to score.

Despite the sinking feeling of being down 0-3, Chairman Ed Snider tried to paint a positive picture of what happened Wednesday night but was also obviously disappointed.

"We were not quite as prepared as we should have been have been for what they did at the beginning of the game," Snider said in rare postgame comments in the locker room. "I never think this team doesn't fight... Last year we showed fight throughout the playoffs. (It's) very much the same squad. They're not ever going to quit."


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