Make it one blown opportunity for the Bruins to stand alone atop the Northeast Division.

Matt Read and Oliver Lauridsen scored 7 seconds apart to lead the Philadelphia Flyers to a 5-2 victory over the Boston Bruins on Tuesday night.

The Bruins are second in the Eastern Conference and lead the division. But the Bruins and Montreal both have 59 points. New Jersey beat Montreal 3-2 on Tuesday night. With three games left for Boston, and two for Montreal, the race for second will come down to the final week.

The Bruins are slumping down the stretch, with one win in their past six games.

“That was definitely a step back in our game,” coach Claude Julien said. “Just really poor puck management tonight and poor decision making. To me, that’s a reflection of guys not being ready to play. At some point, they’ve got to take the accountability of being ready.”

Wade Redden and David Krejci had goals for the Bruins.

Scott Hartnell, Jakub Voracek and Simon Gagne also scored and Steve Mason had 39 saves for the Flyers.

The Flyers paid tribute to Boston in the Bruins’ first road game since the Boston Marathon bombings. The Flyers showed a message on the video board that read, “From One Tough Town to Another.” They also had video images of four blue-yellow ribbons that said, “Boston Strong,” on each faceoff circle.

There was a pregame video set to “Carry On” by Fun that included clips of marathon first responders and other rescue personnel.

Flyers fans stood and cheered, and players from both teams banged their sticks against the boards when the pregame tribute ended.

Then Philadelphia pitched in with its wallets. The 50/50 raffle that usually supports Philadelphia charities went to onefundboston.org. The Flyers raised $85,595. Also, the Flyers were set to put their jerseys up for auction at meigray.com, with proceeds also benefiting onefundboston.org.

“I thought that was a very good presentation, and it’s unbelievable how the United States comes together with tragedies like this,” Read said. “It just shows how strong the United States is, and how closely grouped the Boston area is.”

With fans still on their feet from a stirring rendition of “God Bless America,” Hartnell kept them there with a goal only 1:40 into the game. Hartnell, who missed a month with a broken foot, scored his eighth goal of the season.

Hartnell’s injury was just one of dozens suffered by the Flyers and a big reason why the team missed the playoffs. The Flyers had 11 players scratched for the game, with defenseman Kimmo Timonen joining the list Tuesday. Timonen has a compression fracture in his right foot.

General manager Paul Holmgren said before the game the Flyers could not use injuries as an excuse for underachieving.

“Good teams fight through stuff like this,” Holmgren said. “We just didn’t find a way to fight through it. Is it a factor? Probably. But at the same time, you need to fight through these things. We didn’t.”

Redden tied it late in the first period when he flipped the puck over Steve Mason’s left shoulder. He knocked in Jaromir Jagr’s rebound for his third goal of the season. Jagr played his first game in Philadelphia since he left the team as a free agent over the summer.

Jagr said he had the most fun of his career with the Flyers and wished a deal could have worked out. Holmgren said Jagr rejected a deal in February 2012. By the time free agency started, the Flyers had moved on to other free agents, including an ill-fated pursuit of Nashville defenseman Shea Weber.

The Flyers broke through for good in the second when Read and Lauridsen chased goalie Anton Khudobin.

Read struck first with his 11th goal when he batted in a rebound off Khudobin’s kick save with his left skate. Lauridsen didn’t do much to earn his first NHL goal. Bruins defenseman Zdeno Chara tried to clear the puck deep in the zone but somehow the puck slipped past Khudobin and into the net.

Khudobin slammed his stick against the post in anger and was yanked for Tuukka Rask.

Lauridsen sure wasn’t complaining about the goal.

“Why would I be (upset)? I just scored a goal,” he said. “In 20 years, or a week from now, no one is going to ask me how that went in.”

There was little else for the Bruins to celebrate.

“It wasn’t a good effort,” Redden said. “Look at pretty much all their goals against us. There’s plays we need to make better and play harder in certain areas.”

Voracek scored his team-best 21st goal early in the third for a 4-1 lead.

Krejci beat Mason to make it 4-2 and Boston seemingly still had time to rally. But as the goal was still being announced to the fans, Gagne took a perfect cross-ice pass from Claude Giroux and scored for his fifth goal.

“It’s not fun where we are at in the standings,” Gagne said. “There are a lot of high expectations this year, but I think everything you’re doing right, it’s to help management to show what kind of team we have next year with those young players.”

Game notes

Flyers coach Peter Laviolette told Boston, “We stand with you,” in a videotaped message. … The ECHL’s Trenton Titans have ceased operations and the team will not compete in the 2013-2014 season. The Titans were a Flyers’ affiliate.

The post Philadelphia honors Boston, then Flyers top Bruins appeared first on IdealCapper.

Corey Crawford completed the task to perfection on Sunday night as he made Andrew Shaw’s goal stand up in a 1-0 victory over the Columbus Blue Jackets that stretched the Blackhawks’ NHL-record, season-opening point streak to 18 games.

The Blackhawks are 15-0-3 and show no signs of slowing down.

Crawford earned his seventh NHL shutout and second this season in his first start since Feb. 12. He outdueled Columbus’ Steve Mason, who stopped 26 shots including some sensational point-blank chances.

“I’m seeing the puck well,” Crawford said. “Everyone is doing their job, chipping in. It makes it a lot easier for me.

“Overall I felt good.”

Chicago coach Joel Quenneville thought Crawford (8-0-3) looked just fine in his return, too.

“He was quick,” Quenneville said. “(He was) big, especially on the side-to-side plays on the power play. He tracked the puck well, looked like he wasn’t off for any time at all.

“He had a couple extras days there, got ready. A great response.”

Crawford had been sidelined after he sustained an upper-body injury in a 3-2 shootout loss to Anaheim on Feb. 12. Ray Emery started and won four games in his absence.

Crawford had returned to the lineup as Emery’s backup on Friday when the Blackhawks set the NHL record with at least one point in the first 17 games of a season with a 2-1 win over San Jose. That topped the 2006-07 Anaheim Ducks, who started 12-0-4.

Shaw provided all the offense in the second period on Sunday for the Blackhawks, who have earned 33 of 36 possible points.

The Blackhawks also improved to 9-0-3 in games decided by one goal.

“We’re playing the score” Quenneville said. “We’re playing to win. Being on the right side of pucks in a game like today was a good test for us.

“They work hard. It’s the type of game you make sure you don’t try to manufacture things. We took too many penalties, but got better as the game went on.”

Chicago has won nine straight against Columbus, dating to Feb. 18, 2011.

The 18-game point streak is also a team record for the Blackhawks, who have only lost in shootouts this season.

The Blue Jackets (5-12-2), who have an NHL-low 12 points, went 0 for 5 on the power play. Mason kept the game close as he started for the first time in over a week.

He had been on the bench the past three games while Sergei Bobrovsky started.

“I felt good,” Mason said. “I had about a week’s worth of practice to get ready for this game.

“We knew it was going to be a big one with them being the only undefeated team in the NHL. We would have liked to have come in and ended that streak, but that didn’t happen.”

The Blackhawks dominated territorially and in puck possession through the first two periods, but only managed to get one shot past the Blue Jackets goalie.

Both teams had a handful of scoring chances in the first period. Mason made a point-blank pad save on Marian Hossa with 8:30 left, and Crawford stopped Derick Brassard from the slot two minutes later.

Mason denied Hossa on a breakaway 5:30 into the second after Hossa stole the puck from James Wisniewski at the Columbus blue line.

The Blue Jackets failed to convert several close-in attempts during a power-play late in the second, including when Vinny Prospal’s shot hit the crossbar to cap a breakaway.

Shaw finally broke through with 1:27 left in the second from the low edge of the left circle. He took Bryan Bickell’s backhanded feed from the back boards and ripped a high one-timed shot that beat Mason high on the stick side.

“He saw me coming,” Shaw said. “But I wasn’t sure, so I gave him a holler and he put it in a perfect area.”

Mason made a point-blank pad save on Patrick Kane midway through the third period after Kane made a spectacular spin move and cut across the crease alone.

Game notes

The Ducks went on to win the Stanley Cup in 2007. … Blackhawks C Dave Bolland missed the game because of an undisclosed upper-body injury. … Columbus went 1-5 on its six-game road trip. …The Blue Jackets placed D Jack Johnson (upper-body), on the injured list on Sunday. C Brandon Dubinsky (lower body) and C Artem Anisimov (upper body) were also out.

The post Blackhawks stretch season-opening points streak to 18 appeared first on IdealCapper.