“I guess we could have avoided that had we been better in the second. But when you’re not, you’ve got to find a way out of the hole you dug yourselves in. Our guys did that.’’
The Bruins, legless and heartless in the second, regrouped in the third. A late Maxime Talbot deflection negated third-period strikes by David Krejci and Gregory Campbell, sending the game into overtime. The Flyers fought off an OT holding call on Kimmo Timonen to prompt the shootout.
It was up to Krejci and Tyler Seguin to solve Ilya Bryzgalov in the shootout. Claude Giroux, Philadelphia’s No. 2 shooter, beat Tim Thomas with a slick backhand roof job. But Thomas turned aside Wayne Simmonds to backstop his club to the 2-point decision.
“We had a great first period,’’ said Milan Lucic, who recorded a Gordie Howe hat trick (goal and fight in the first period, assist in the third). “Then our intensity dropped. We started to play soft. We took too many penalties. We got ourselves in trouble. The good thing is we were able to refocus and pull this one out.’’
Nathan Horton didn’t play in the third period because of a head injury. At 2:53 of the second, Tom Sestito connected with a blind-side hit on Horton. He finished with zero shots in 11:51 of ice time and was unavailable for comment after the game. Julien didn’t know whether Horton would be available tomorrow against Washington.
During last year’s Stanley Cup Final, Horton was diagnosed with a severe concussion in Game 3 when he was blasted by Aaron Rome. Julien didn’t say whether Horton’s latest head injury resulted in a concussion.
“I guess we’ll find out in the next few days here,’’ Julien said. “But we certainly didn’t allow him to come back and play this game.’’
Horton didn’t care for the hit and went after Sestito. Horton was called for interference, while Lucic and Marc-Andre Bourdon went off with matching roughing minors. At 3:23, on the ensuing power play, Giroux and Scott Hartnell connected for the first of three second-period strikes.
