But when the Bruins beat Philadelphia, 5-1, on Friday night to complete a series sweep, they nullified the bitter memory of last year’s playoff collapse against the Flyers, when they blew a three-game lead and fell to perhaps the most ignominious defeat in their nine decades of existence. They also vanquished another demon, the one tailing them since 1992, the last time they won two series in the same postseason.
“This is a huge win for our organization,” said forward Milan Lucic, who scored twice. “The last few years we’ve been looking for this eighth win of the playoffs to get into the third round, and we were able to get that job done tonight.
The Bruins, who have not won the Stanley Cup since 1972, will now face the Tampa Bay Lightning in the Eastern Conference finals.
The game was much closer than the final score, inflated by three late Boston goals, indicated. The key goal came on a slap shot from the blue line by Bruins defenseman Johnny Boychuk that broke a 1-1 tie at 2 minutes 42 seconds of the third period.
Boychuk received the puck off a draw in the Flyers’ end and fired. His shot nicked the stick of Philadelphia defenseman Kimmo Timonen and zipped over the flashing glove of goalie Sergei Bobrovsky, breaking the tie and sending those demons to flight.
“Soon as we scored everybody got going again, and we needed that,” Boychuk said of his tie-breaking goal.
It was Boychuk’s second goal of the playoffs, but the Flyers still had hope until Milan Lucic scored with just under five minutes to play. It was Lucic’s second goal of the game.
Lucic had 30 goals during the regular season, but these were his first two of the playoffs. He had been one of only two Bruins forwards not to score in this postseason.
Brad Marchand and Daniel Paille added empty-net goals, and Bruins fans, certain that last year’s events would not repeat themselves, put up a joyous din.
But afterward Boston’s top defenseman, Zdeno Chara, said last year wasn’t even on the Bruins’ mind.
“To be honest with you, nobody was really talking about last year,” Chara said. “We were just trying to stay focused on taking it one game at a time.”
Boston Coach Claude Julien said it would take the Bruins’ best effort of the series to close out the Flyers, and in many ways, this was. It was the only time in four games that the Bruins outshot the Flyers.
Lucic opened the scoring on the second of three Boston power plays in the first period.
But the Flyers equalized with the only goal of the second period, when Kris Versteeg finished a two-on-one break after the Bruins’ Brad Marchand gave the puck away to Mike Richards.
It was also Versteeg’s first playoff goal. He scored 21 times in the regular season, his first with Philadelphia after winning the Stanley Cup with Chicago last season.
In Game 4 of last year’s series, the Flyers averted elimination with a 5-4 win on an overtime goal by Simon Gagne, now with Tampa Bay. That victory, on May 7, 2010, started them on their way to becoming just the third team in N.H.L. history to win a series after being down three games.
Gagne is one of five players in the Flyers lineup that night who were not on the ice Friday. The group included Chris Pronger, who has been out with an injury since Game 2, and Brian Boucher, who was replaced by the rookie Sergei Bobrovsky as the Philadelphia goaltending carousel kept turning.
It was the first start of the series for the Flyers rookie Bobrovsky, after he came in to relieve Brian Boucher in each of the first three games. Bobrovsky stopped 22 of 25 Boston shots.
While the Flyers skated 14 of the same players Friday as they did for last year’s Game 4, the Bruins had only nine returners.
Seven of the Bruins’ newcomers were off-season acquisitions: Marchand, Gregory Campbell, Tomas Kaberle, Chris Kelly, Shane Hnidy, Nick Peverley and Nathan Horton, who had never played in the postseason in six previous years in the N.H.L., all with Florida, but scored two overtime goals in the opening round against Montreal.
Two were injured for last year’s game but have played key roles this season: defenseman Dennis Seidenberg, the effective partner for Zdeno Chara; and David Krejci, whose assist on Lucic’s first goal gave him a series-high 9 points.
And the other is goalie Tim Thomas, who was on the bench last year.
Thomas stopped 22 of 23 shots Friday. In this year’s series against the Flyers, he turned aside 142 of 149 shots, a .953 save percentage. That followed a regular season in which Thomas set an N.H.L. record with a .938 save percentage.
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