The Flyers' winless streak reached 10 games Saturday after the Boston Bruins shutout the Flyers 3-0 at the Wells Fargo Center.
The 10-game winless stretch matches the team’s 10-game streak in 2008.
Boston’s top line of Brad Marchand, Patrice Bergeron and David Pastrnak took over with a pair of second-period goals.
Claude Giroux had his five-game point streak snapped when his 12th goal of the season was taken off the board in the second after on-ice officials determined there was goaltender interference on Wayne Simmonds after he made slight contact to the helmet of Tuukka Rask.
The Flyers were shutout for the sixth time this season, but the first against an Eastern Conference team.
Brian Elliott stopped 24 of 27 shots.
NHL
Immediately after the game, the Flyers leave for Calgary where they’ll begin a three-game Western Canadian road trip with games against the Flames, Oilers and Canucks.
Here are observations from today’s loss.
• Ryan Spooner got the Bruins going with his first-period goal. The play all started with Nolan Patrick’s sloppy backhand pass along the boards that Noel Acciari intercepted and then fed a breaking Spooner who raced down the right side and beat Elliott easily through the five hole. Andrew MacDonald simply didn’t have the foot speed to catch up to Spooner.
• Unlike the Sharks game Tuesday, the Flyers brought some early emotion. Simmonds dropped the gloves and got in some quality shots with the left on Boston’s Kevan Miller. Later in the first period, Ivan Provorov leveled Marchand with what appeared to be a clean open-ice hit, but Provorov was called for an illegal check to the head with the 5-foot-9 Marchand skating with his head down. In any other era, that play never gets called.
• The Flyers got an early power play when Sean Couturier drew a holding penalty against Pastrnak. However, give the Bruins' top two lines the early edge over the Flyers first and second lines. Boston had a 13-6 edge in even-strength shots.
• Elliott made his best pad save of the season on David Backes’ redirected shot. Elliott extended the left pad just enough that the puck shot off the left post and was swatted out of the crease, otherwise, the Bruins would have had a 2-0 first-period lead.
• The Bruins grabbed a 2-0 lead when Patrick lost a defensive zone faceoff. A rather odd play where the puck went off Patrick’s skate, Marchand alertly stepped in and beat Robert Hagg to the puck and then quickly fed it to Pastrnak for the quick shot that caught Elliott leaning to his left.
• After their first period fight, Simmonds outdueled Miller once again and drew a holding penalty, and much like the first period, the Flyers completely squandered the opportunity. In their first two power play opportunities, the five-man unit was kept around the perimeter, sat back and didn’t really attack the Bruins’ penalty kill.
• Marchand gave the Bruins a 3-0 lead after the Flyers lost a pivotal board battle, where they had four orange sweaters to the Bruins three. Pastrnak came away with the puck and fed it to the point where Charlie McAvoy took a slap shot that Marchand intercepted in front of the crease, and then backhanded a shot into an open net. Two hustle plays for Marchand gave the Bruins a 3-0 lead.
• The Flyers' third line provided the team’s two best even strength chances in the second period, both provided by Travis Konecny. One was a drop pass to Brandon Manning, who fired a shot right into the chest of Rask. Konecny provided the other when he had a wide-open look off the right wing, but his shot directly rebounded off Rask’s left pad.
• Shayne Gostisbehere took a frustration penalty when he took his stick and crosschecked Marchand, who was merely looking to dump the puck and get off the ice for a change. It also erased the final minute of the Flyers' power play. Not a smart penalty from Gostisbehere, but he got one back when he drew a tripping call from Boston defenseman Charlie McCoy.
• Giroux sniped a power play goal top shelf, a perfectly placed shot, in the second period but it was taken off the board as Simmonds barely clipped Rask with his elbow. The officials determined he made some sort of contact, but overall it shouldn’t have disallowed the goal as Simmonds was skating away from the crease. It seems as if all these goaltender interference calls have gone against the Flyers this season.
Lines, pairings and scratches
Forwards
Claude Giroux-Sean Couturier-Jakub Voracek
Jordan Weal-Nolan Patrick-Wayne Simmonds
Michael Raffl-Valterri Filppula-Travis Konecny
Jori Lehtera-Scott Laughton-Dale Weise
Defensemen
Ivan Provorov-Andrew MacDonald
Shayne Gostisbehere-Robert Hagg
Travis Sanheim-Brandon Manning
Goalies
Brian Elliott
Michal Neuvirth
Scratches: Radko Gudas, Taylor Leier and Mark Alt.