GOLD STAR: Travis Konecny has proven once again that he’s one of the guys that the Bruins missed out on in the 2015 draft. The B’s passed over him (among others) to draft Zach Senyshyn with the 15th overall pick in that draft and it was pretty obvious which one is the more impactful player, as both were on the ice for Sunday night’s game. Konecny finished with a goal and two points and provided the first score of the night for Philly when he cleaned up a loose puck in front after Jaroslav Halak was handcuffed by a shot from Sean Couturier. Konecny finished with a goal, two points, a plus-2 rating, three shot attempts, one takeaway and one blocked shot in an active night for the Flyers winger. It gives Konecny eight goals and 19 points in 17 games for the Flyers after Sunday night’s effort.
BLACK EYE: Charlie McAvoy needs to find a way to improve on some areas of his game. It was his ill-advised pinch in the first period when on ice with the fourth line that led to the Flyers rush up the ice and net Konecny's goal. McAvoy finished with three giveaways in a team-high 26:04 of ice time, but was far too loose defensively in a game where the Bruins had a horrendous start. McAvoy now has four points in 17 games this season after going without any offensive production on Sunday night, and he needs to get it into gear with his best game sooner rather than later.
TURNING POINT: The Bruins tied it up in the third period while outshooting the tired Flyers by a 17-7 margin, and looked like they could have won the game in regulation when David Pastrnak was awarded a penalty shot. Pastrnak tried to dazzle Flyers goaltender Carter Hart with his stickhandling, but was shut down by the Philly netminder when he could have won the game with a successful penalty shot. Instead the Bruins and Flyers remained locked at 2-2, and then Pastrnak again was unsuccessful during a shootout that eventually went the way of the Flyers. Their best chance to win was Pastrnak’s penalty shot and it didn’t happen for the Black and Gold as No. 88 has now gone two straight games without a goal for the first time this season.
HONORABLE MENTION: Zdeno Chara was solid enough with three shots on net, three hits, a takeaway and a blocked shot in 22:56 of ice time, and certainly didn’t play much of a role in the mistakes made that led to Boston’s deficit. But it ended up being the best moment of the night when Chara was recognized for playing in his 1,500th NHL game in a video tribute at home that featured Alex Ovechkin, Jonathan Toews, Anze Kopitar, Ryan Getzlaf and Nick Lidstrom all saying congratulations to Big Zee for hitting his career milestone. It all registered a quick wave from Chara to the crowd for the long ovation following the jumbotron show, and then it was quickly back to the game as the Bruins captain clearly prefers it to be.
BY THE NUMBERS: 5 – the number of shots on net that the Bruins had after each of the first and second periods while struggling majorly out of the starting gate against the Flyers.
QUOTE TO NOTE: “Poor. That’s about it. To sum it up, it was poor. We need to correct it in a hurry, but the good news is we did find our game eventually, and we can build off that.” –Bruce Cassidy, when asked his thoughts about the beginning of the game for the Bruins.
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