Bruins win third straight, down Flyers 5-2

Don’t look now, but the Bruins just might have created a little momentum for themselves.

After five days off, the B’s went into the Wells Fargo Center on Saturday and beat the Philadelphia Flyers, 5-2, for their first three-game win streak of the season, all by the same score.

It wasn’t perfect. The B’s blew a two-goal lead in the second period. But they did not flinch, pumping 44 shots on net and winning going away. And for the second game in a row, they did not have to lean on their top line.

Derek Forbort scored twice, Craig Smith scored his first of the year and the B’s picked up a hard-earned two points on the road. It was Forbort’s first multi-goal game as an NHLer and, through just 14 games this season, he already has a career-high four goals.

“Yeah, two of them have been pretty lucky, so let’s not get carried away here,” said Forbort, who now leads the B’s defense corps in goal-scoring. “But when it’s time to be aggressive and make a play, (the coaches) want you to do that up top.”

While one of his goals may have been a fortunate deflection on Saturday, those are the kinds of goals that coach Bruce Cassidy has been trying to get from his back end for years.

“It’s a nice bonus,” said Cassidy. “He’s putting it on net. He’s shot ready … I’m not saying that’s why he has goals, but he’s at least putting himself in position to get on the scoreboard.”

Linus Ullmark made 29 saves, including a nice stop on a partial breakaway by Claude Giroux in the first period, to get back in the win column.

The Bruins had their most dominant first period of the season, outshooting the Flyers 21-8. But it appeared as though Martin Jones was going to hold the B’s off the board in the first period when they finally scored at 18:25 on a quintessential fourth-line goal.

Curtis Lazar followed up a Matt Grzelcyk dump-in and knocked Nick Seeler off the puck behind the net. It squirted to Anton Blidh on the right side and he made a centering pass to Tomas Nosek. The centerman kicked the puck to his stick blade and then roofed a pretty backhander past Jones’ left ear.

The B’s looked ready to assert control over the game when they went up 2-0 just 30 seconds into the second period. Forbort’s left-point slapper deflected off Justin Braun’s stick blade and over Jones for the two-goal lead and Forbort’s third of the year, a career high.

But as has been the case too often this year, the B’s let their opponent respond with a goal within the next minute. Derick Brassard got the Flyers back to within a goal at 1:22. Rasmus Ristolainen blasted a shot/pass that went off the end boards. Cam Atkinson collected it behind the net and tried to jam home short-side. It bounced off Ullmark’s stick and it dribbled out into the slot, from where Brassard knocked it home.

That changed the tenor of the game for a time.

The Flyers and Brassard eventually tied it up at 9:25 on the power play after Brad Marchand was the only player to go to the box from a 10-man scrum behind the Flyers net.

On the PP, Lazar was in the right spot to stop Giroux’s back-door pass, but it somehow got through to Brassard for the open-net goal.

This team is no longer the Big, Bad Bruins of old. In fact, they only had two fighting majors in the first 13 games. But sometimes, a good bout is called for. And with the game slipping away from the B’s, Charlie McAvoy picked a good time to drop the gloves. He and fellow Boston University alum Joel Farabee were trading heavy checks along the right boards in the B’s zone when they decided they’d had enough. McAvoy landed a big blow early and took the decisive win.

Before the period was out, the B’s had a one-goal lead again with another goal coming off the stick of Forbort. Jake DeBrusk (two assists) and Smith won a puck near the right point, with Smith coming out of the pack with it. He dropped it for Forbort and went to the net as the defenseman moved down and sniped a wrister over Jones’ glove shoulder at 16:27. Smith, who’d missed the previous three games with an undisclosed injury, notched his first point on the season on the goal.

“I had a lot of time to walk down. Smitty did such a good job of making the play. I don’t know who drove the net (Smith) but it kind of screened the goalie and prevented the D-man from coming out on me. Just a good play all around by the fellas,” said Forbort.

If that play didn’t give any indication that Smith was feeling better, he removed any doubt early in the third period. The winger turned on the jets on a rush up the right side and simply beat Jones with a high wrist shot just 1:28 into the third to reclaim the B’s two-goal lead.

Then the B’s were the recipients of a gift. Brandon Carlo was called for tripping at 11:54. On the first faceoff, Brassard was kicked out of the circle and then Giroux was called for a violation, resulting in a bench minor, though it appeared Patrice Bergeron was the one who knocked the puck out of the lineman’s hand.

On the ensuing 4-on-4, David Pastrnak put the B’s up 5-2 off a nice Jakub Zboril feed at 12:47 to give the B’s a vise-like grip on the game.