New linemates Casey Mittelstadt, Fraser Minten and Viktor Arvidsson all scored goals and combined for seven points, leading the Boston Bruins to a 6-3 win over the visiting Philadelphia Flyers on Thursday night.
Mittelstadt and Minten each had a goal and two assists, while Pavel Zacha, Tanner Jeannot and Marat Khusnutdinov also scored for Boston, which is 10-1-1 in its last 12 overall and will finish January with nine wins in as many home games.
Andrew Peeke and Jonathan Aspirot each added a pair of helpers for the Bruins, who blew the game open with a three-goal second period to support Jeremy Swayman’s 33-save effort.
Travis Konecny had a goal and an assist, and Nikita Grebenkin and Matvei Michkov also scored for the Flyers, who have lost three in a row and 10 of their last 12 (2-8-2).
Philadelphia’s Samuel Ersson made 15 saves over the first two periods before departing with a lower-body injury. Dan Vladar stopped all six shots he faced in relief in the third.
Zacha left the game with an upper-body injury after playing 10:46.
Two goals in a 41-second span in the first helped the Bruins start off in front. After a series of quality chances, Arvidsson lit the lamp first at 9:49 as he ripped a one-time shot from the right circle. Mittelstadt and Minten set up the play with a crisp passing sequence.
Zacha made it 2-0 at 10:30. Jonathan Aspirot won a puck battle in the neutral zone and fed Morgan Geekie on the wing, where he made a centering pass back to Zacha to finish with a top-shelf wrist shot.
After goaltender interference wiped away a Philadelphia goal minutes after Zacha’s, Minten extended Boston’s lead to 3-0 when Mittelstadt’s backhand feed on the rush led him in for a five-hole finish at 2:27 of the second.
A night after scoring a hat trick in Columbus, Konecny buried Dvorak’s feed out of the corner with a wrist shot to bring the Flyers back within two at 3:16.
The Bruins scored twice in 2:28 late in the second to jump out to a 5-1 lead.
Mittelstadt began the latest spurt at 16:12, following up Ersson’s point-blank save on Andrew Peeke by charging in to bury the loose puck that squirted back into the slot.
At 18:40, Jeannot tipped in Peeke’s drive from the right point for a 5-1 Boston lead.
Grebenkin responded for Philly with 54.5 seconds left in the middle frame, bursting down the middle for a wrister after Swayman made back-to-back stops on Konecny.
In the third, neither team scored until Khusnutdinov’s empty-netter with 3:31 left and Michkov buried a loose puck around the crease during a Flyer power play 1:50 later.
–Field Level Media
