The Bruins' lackluster effort against the Philadelphia Flyers tonight was evident all night long. Lack of desperation and energy was replaced with carelessness and frustration as they dropped this possible series-ending Game 5 at the TD Garden with an embarrassing 4-0 shutout.
In the early stages of the second period, Flyers' net-minder Brian Boucher went down-and-out with an apparent left leg injury. Boucher, although stellar against the Devils in Round One -- .925 save-percentage -- has come back to earth since facing the Bruins in Round Two -- 15 goals-against on 128 shots.883 save-percentage.
Enter: Michael Leighton -- the back-up who dressed in his first game since suffering a high-ankle sprain back on Mar. 16 against the Nashville Predators, where he allowed two goals on five shots-against.
“Three weeks to a month he's [Leighton] been on the ice. He joined the team a couple of weeks ago and was actually ready to go last game but we decided to hold off one game just to to make sure he was good." said Flyers head coach Peter Laviolette.
The patience of the Flyers' coaching staff paid off, as Leighton came in and played superbly.
“We shut it down just to the two goaltenders so he got lots of work and wanted to treat it like a game and try and make yesterday's practice his masterpiece." added Laviolette. "Really try and dial in on every shot and every rebound and prepare himself like he was going to play because you never know what's going to happen.
“I thought he came in tonight and looked really strong in there. He looked square to the puck and solid. There wasn’t a lot of opportunity."
The less-than-aggressive Bruins put just 23 shots on goal all night with zero hitting the back of the net. Despite missing the last 21 consecutive games over the past two months, Boston's aloofness managed to throw just 14 shots on the stale Leighton. It was their second-lowest total of the playoffs after averaging 34 shots on Sabres' goaltender Ryan Miller in six quarterfinal games, and nearly 31 throughout this semifinals series.
"We didn't respond.” said Bruins' head coach Claude Julien.“We would have like to have tested him a lot more . I think it was pretty clear that we wanted to get some shots on him. But that didn't happen."
But there were plenty of opportunities. Just 0:16 seconds after Leighton came in for the injured Boucher, Flyers forward Danny Briere was called for a two-minute cross-checking penalty. However, the B's failed to capitalize on this stellar opportunity with the two-minute man-adcantage.
"We didn't do a great job of generating too many shots. We didn't get shots through, we didn't set up shots too well.” winger Milan Lucic said. “We've got to do a better job of executing when we get our opportunities like that. I mean it's 2-0 and you get a chance to get yourself back in the game. So it's another missed opportunity on the power play and we need to start making those count.”
Boston has allowed Philadelphia right back in this best-of-seven series, 3-2, as Game 6 heads back to the Wachovia Center on Wednesday night. The Back-and-Gold can only learn from this uneventful and impassioned game and move forward.
“Tonight they just wanted it more than us. They were a better team than us. I don't know why and I don't know why we didn't have that desperation." said Bruins winger Mark Recchi. "But the good thing about it like I said, we're still up 3-2, and we're still at home ice and we've got an opportunity to go there Wednesday and finish the series.
"Now we have to learn from this and we have to understand that if we don't play desperate than we're going to come back Game 7. We have to be a lot more desperate and a lot more hungry to close out this series”
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