Pavel Zacha scored 2:49 into overtime and the Boston Bruins defeated the Philadelphia Flyers 4-3 on Saturday for their fourth straight victory.
Boston’s Brad Marchand tied the score with 5:22 left in regulation time. Trent Frederic had the other two goals for Boston, which is 7-2 since interim coach Joe Sacco took over for fired coach Jim Montgomery.
Zacha scored the winner after Boston goalkeeper Jeremy Swayman stopped Joel Farabee’s breakaway seconds earlier.
Rookie Matvei Michkov scored two goals in the first period for Philadelphia in its second straight loss. Cam York also scored and Travis Sanheim had two assists.
After a frustrating loss to Florida when they gave up a season-high seven goals, the Flyers blew a third-period lead for the second straight game.
Michkov scored a power-play goal at 7:24 when he one-timed a shot from the right circle after a short tip pass from Sean Couturier. His second came on a targeted shot on the edge of the crease.
Flyers: Michkov led all rookies in scoring on the day with nine goals and 22 points and had three assists in his final game on Thursday.
Bruins: Sacco used star winger David Pastrnak on the top line with Brad Marchand for the second straight game and the first two times this season after Marchand scored two goals in Boston’s last game.
Marchand rushed for a puck deep in the offensive zone, skated around Tyson Foerster and slid the puck between Aleksei Kolosov’s pads for the tying goal.
The Bruins won the season series 2-1.
The Flyers have a quick turnaround and host Utah on Sunday, and the Bruins are off until Tuesday when they begin a five-game trip in Winnipeg.
Flyers coach John Tortorella criticizes the referee in a 4-3 overtime loss to the Bruins
Philadelphia Flyers coach John Tortorella became frustrated with a number of calls during Saturday’s 4-3 overtime loss to the Boston Bruins.
“Let me start: one thing I teach my team is not to dive,” he said at the opening of his post-match press conference. ‘Maybe I should teach them that. The way things have been going here…maybe I should teach them to dive.”
The Flyers were called for two tripping penalties — neither led to goals — in the third period and were also whistled for a tripping penalty that led to a goal in the second period.
Boston scored twice in the third period of its fourth straight victory. Philadelphia blew a lead in the third period for the second straight game.
“I’m not going to get too far into it,” Tortorella said. “That’s one of the things we talk about as a team: ‘We have to play a fair game. There’s no cheating, there’s no embarrassing referees. You don’t embarrass the referees.’”
