BOSTON — Maybe the Bruins need a challenge. If that’s the case, they will have that need satisfied starting next week when they face a steady stream of true contenders.
But right now, the 15-2 Bruins are the walking definition of winning ugly. On Thursday, the Bruins never trailed but they had to overcome a succession of their own giveaways to finally put down the Philadelphia Flyers, 4-1, at TD Garden to stretch their home win streak to start the season to 10-0. They are one off the league mark of 11-0, achieved by the 1963-64 Chicago Blackhawks and the 2021-22 Florida Panthers.
The Blackhawks have a chance to defend their record on Saturday night at the Garden.
On Thursday, the Bruins got three goals in the third period, two by David Krejci, to pull away from Philly.
Linus Ullmark continued his quest for the Vezina Award, stopping 22 of 23 shots, including several high quality chances.
As has been the case in a few games lately, the Bruins were not at their best in the first period. They handed the puck to the Flyers in dangerous situations and either the visitors could not put together a scoring chance or Ullmark bailed out his teammates.
The game started to turn a little bit in the Bruins favor late in the first, starting with a solid penalty kill. In the waning seconds of the Flyer advantage, Philly took a too-many-men penalty and the Bruins nearly took the lead when Brad Marchand tried a wraparound. Goalie Carter Hart was just able to get his skate blade on the offering and jam it up against the post.
It was a lot more of the same in the second period as the Bruins struggled mightily with their puck management, handing the Flyers potential scoring opportunities with which they could do nothing.
Finally, Tomas Nosek, who broke a 65-game goal-less streak on Sunday, broke the ice at 11:25. Hampus Lindholm broke out the puck and carried it into the offensive zone before handing it over to Pavel Zacha. Zacha made a cross-ice pass to Nick Foligno, who took the puck behind the net and fed Nosek for the goal.
The Bruins had to hang on early in the third period when they had to kill an undisciplined slashing penalty by Taylor Hall that came late in the second period. Then, once Hall was freed, they had to kill another one when Ullmark interfered with Morgan Frost.
And Ullmark would bail himself out on the PK, stoning Kevin Hayes when he was all alone at the top of the crease.
But the Bruins birthed a two-goal lead after Max Willman got a stick up high on Connor Clifton. On the power play, David Pastrnak made a pretty slap-pass to Jake DeBrusk for the redirect goal at 7:32.
The Flyers finally beat Ullmark six seconds after Charlie McAvoy was sent off for interference. After Patrice Bergeron was kicked out of the faceoff circle, the Flyers controlled the draw and then Owen Tippett used a screen to beat Ullmark with a high wrist shot to the blocker side at 9:48.
Just 16 seconds later, though, the Bruins recaptured their two-goal lead. Lindholm sent a puck out of the Bruins zone toward the other end and Zacha caught up to it in the Flyer. Zacha fought off Ivan Provorov until he could push the puck into open space for David Krejci, who floated a roof job past Hart to make it 3-1 at 10:04.
Krejci added a other power-play goal, putting away another pretty pass from Foligno, which was the veteran’s 300th assist.
