Couturier Scores Hat Trick, Hart Stands Tall in Flyers Win Over Bruins

By Kevin Durso, Sports Talk Philly editor 

Sean Couturier took care of the offense and Carter Hart continued to show that the future is now for the Flyers in goal.

Couturier scored another hat trick for the Flyers, while Hart stopped a career-high 39 shots in a 4-3 Flyers win over the Boston Bruins on Wednesday night at Wells Fargo Center.

Both teams got power play early in the period. The Flyers never managed to get set up on their power play. The Bruins wasted little time capitalizing on theirs.

Torey Krug made a perfect pass to David Pastrnak for a one-timer from the left circle to get the Bruins on the board at 4:39.

Just under five minutes later, the Bruins completed another great passing play. This time, Jake DeBrusk put a perfect pass back into the slot for Peter Cehlarik to make it 2-0 at 9:12.

The Flyers did get on the board just over three minutes later. Claude Giroux made a nice play at the line to get the puck into the slot for Oskar Lindblom. Lindblom took a shot that connected with the stick of Zdeno Chara and fluttered past Jaroslav Halak to make it 2-1.

After 20 minutes, the Bruins had a 12-7 lead in shots.

The Flyers tied things up at 5:32 of the second. A shot by Jake Voracek was deflected in by Couturier for his 17th goal of the season.

Just 1:15 later, with the Flyers on the power play, the Bruins got a shorthanded two-on-one, but Hart made the save on Sean Kuraly. Back the other way, the Flyers moved in transition and completed a perfect tic-tac-toe passing play from Giroux to Wayne Simmonds to Couturier for his second goal of the game and 18th of the season to give the Flyers the lead.

Hart stood tall throughout the period, stopping 17 shots from Boston in the period. The final 3:12 of that was spent on the penalty kill after Jori Lehtera was called for a boarding major and game misconduct.

For most of the third period, the Flyers were clinging to a one-goal lead. They killed off the remaining 1:48 of Lehtera's major and then two more penalties.

With under five minutes to play, the Flyers appeared to put the nail in the coffin on the Bruins, with Couturier scoring to complete the hat trick on a two-on-one.

However, with 1:06 remaining and the goalie pulled, the Bruins got one back as Cehlarik scored again with a deflection on a shot by Brad Marchand.

Couturier was denied his fourth goal of the game into an empty net as David Krejci took a holding penalty with 15 seconds left, all but sealing the deal.

Hart made a career-high 39 saves on 42 shots in the win. Halak stopped 15 of 19 Flyers shots.

It was also the first time the Flyers had hat tricks in back-to-back games since the 2002-03 season when Mark Recchi and John LeClair did it in back-to-back games.

Box Score

Scoring Summary

1st Period

• BOS David Pastrnak (27) PP (Torey Krug, Brad Marchand) 4:39
• BOS Peter Cehlarik (1) (Jake DeBrusk, David Krejci) 9:12
• PHI Oskar Lindblom (5) (Claude Giroux, Ivan Provorov) 12:44

2nd Period

• PHI Sean Couturier (17) (Jake Voracek, Travis Sanheim) 5:32
• PHI Couturier (18) PP (Wayne Simmonds, Giroux) 6:47

3rd Period

• PHI Couturier (19) (Lindblom, Provorov) 15:53
• BOS Cehlarik (2) (Marchand, Krug) 18:54

Game Statistics