Thomas continues domination of Flyers

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PHILADELPHIATim Thomas is officially in the heads of the Philadelphia Flyers.
The last time the 37-year-old was at Wells Fargo Center, he made 52 saves in an overtime victory in Game 2 of their playoff series last season. And there was no drop off in his return performance Saturday.
Thomas made 31 stops en route to his 30th career shutout with the Bruins in the 6-0 beating of the Flyers, which improved Thomas' career record against Philadelphia to 11-3-2.
Tims a battler," said coach Claude Julien. "He needed to battle tonight because they had a lot of pucks in the crease area andeven though they didnt score at all -- they do a very good job of getting pucks there. He stood in the battle to make the big saves, and he didnt allow them to score to get any life.
The Bruins had suffered some defensive slippage in the last week or -- and allowed the Senators to fire 49 shots against Thomas only a few days prior -- but Thomas enjoyed a little defense renaissance with the return of Zdeno Chara.
"We had a well-rounded game today and we started well, which put the momentum back in our favor," Thomas said. "We were up 4-0 and I knew the game was in our hands. How the rest of the game would go, if we got overconfident or lazy and let them back in the game, that's something we talked about a little bit in between periods.
"Our goal was not to get lazy. We were happy to take that early lead. We didn't plan it, but the important thing is how we reacted to it. We kept playing hard."
The goaltending tandem of Thomas and Tuukka Rask put on a show during the week; the two stopped 119 out of 121 shots over three wins against the Kings, Senators and Flyers. That amounts to a .983 save percentage in the three Boston wins, and is another important facet of a Bs hockey machine that can beat opponents in a multitude of ways.
Thomas was lucky at times against the Flyers, such as when Wayne Simmonds lifted wobbly wrist shot that flicked off the left post and then dropped in front of Thomas in the crease area. He hopped onto the puck for a whistle, but then was quickly pushed over the goal line while sponging up the puck. It was never called a goal on the ice and a review revealed that Thomas was indeed shoved over the goal line.
Daniel Briere and Jakub Voracek conjured up some quality scoring chances while the game was still in the early stages, but it turned into an easier task once the Bruins offense had built up a four-goal bulge in the first period.
Over the last couple of months weve won quite a bit and weve done it in a lot of different ways, obviously, said Thomas. This is one where we can pat ourselves on the back a little bit more than before because we played a complete 60 minutes.

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