Boston's Headband: Poetic Justice

With a resounding 5-1 victory in Game 4, the surging Bruins finished off the Flyers and now move on to face the upstart Tampa Bay Lightning in the Eastern Conference Finals.

For the first time in 19 long, agonizing and heart-breaking years, the Boston Bruins are headed back to the Eastern Conference Finals.

Exorcising the demons of last season's devastating playoff collapse, the Black and Gold put any thoughts of a similar tragedy to rest Friday night by destroying the Flyers, 5-1, before an electric sell-out crowd of 17,565 at the TD Garden.

With the Game 4 victory, the Bruins sweep Philadelphia out of the playoffs and now move on to face the streaking Tampa Bay Lightning.

"I think the one thing that our team understands here is that there are some great fans here in Boston," said head coach Claude Julien in his post-game news conference. "And I said in the first round, they have been punished enough. And they have had some tough years. Yet our building is filled right now and the fans are into it. For us, it's rewarding to be able to give those fans what they have been waiting for for a long time."

"Oh it's great," said Bruins defenseman Johnny Boychuk, who scored the game-winning goal 2:42 into the third period. "We were up three-nothing and we wanted to make sure that when we have that chance to close it off, we wanted to close it off and we did."

Once again, Tim Thomas was stellar in net for the Bruins, stopping 22 of 23 shots.

Offensively, Milan Lucic led the way with a pair of goals, including the opening tally on the power-play (yes, the power play) midway through the first period to give the Bruins an early 1-0 lead. He added a much-needed insurance goal with less than five minutes remaining in regulation to make it 3-1.

The offensive outburst is a great sign for Lucic. Despite leading the team in regular season goals with 30, the bruising winger had gone 20 games without a tally before Friday night.

However, the game was far from the laugher it appeared to be. Tied 1-1 heading into the third period, the Bruins appeared to lose their edge and the Flyers quickly seized the momentum. Then, things took a serious turn for the worst.

Less than three minutes into the final period, Flyers forward Claude Giroux leveled Bruins assistant captain Patrice Bergeron with an open-ice check in the Boston zone. Bergeron, who had his promising career derailed after a pair of concussions, immediately left the game looking dazed.

However, instead of letting the loss of Bergeron create a psychological tailspin, the Bruins answered just four seconds after their best two-way player left the ice. Blasting a slapshot from the point, Boychuk beat Flyers rookie goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky top shelf to give Boston a 2-1 lead.

Boychuck's blast ended up being the game-winner.

"Well obviously that was a big goal tonight," said head coach Claude Julien of Boychuck's tally. "It certainly lifted the whole bench."

After Boychuk's goal, the Bruins took control. Lucic's second tally made it 3-1, forcing Flyers head coach Peter Laviolette to pull Bobrovsky early for an extra skater.

Brad Marchand, after coughing up the puck in his own end that led to a Kris Versteeg goal to tie the score during the second period, bounced back to hammer home an empty-net goal to make it 4-1. Daniel Paille added another empty-netter to finishing the scoring.

"We really didn't want to go back to Philly," admitted Marchand after the game. "If they were to steal tonight, we got back Philly and anything can happen. It is not a place we want to go. It was nice in front of our how crowd and they were right with us."

The lone black cloud in an otherwise Black and Gold utopia remains the status of Bergeron. Initial reports indicate a mild concussion, which would guarantee Bergeron sits out at least the first few games against the Lightning. However, after having missed nearly the entire 2007-08 season after suffering a major concussion stemming from a cheap shot by the infamous Randy Jones, as well as another concussion in 2008-09 that sidelined Bergeron for over a month, no one knows how Bergeron will respond after suffering his third concussion in less than four years.

"When I spoke with him after the game," said GM Peter Chiarelli," he was a little despondent, but he was quite lucid, to me. But he was despondent having suffered another concussion."

The worst part of it all is that Bergeron had been by far and away the Bruins best player this postseason, leading the team in points (2 goals, 10 assists) and hits (28) entering Game 4.

With Bergeron's status in jeopardy, rookie phenom Tyler Seguin should see his first career playoff action.

Still, despite the injury to Bergeron, it's hard for Bruins fans not to be overblown with pride, happiness, and optimism after witnessing such an epic series-clinching game.

After all, it simply doesn't happen very often.

"So you play for a city, you come from all over the place, but you are representing the city of Boston and the one thing you want to do is do them proud," concluded Julien. "And I think our guys have got that behind their minds here of continuing to do well here and hopefully bring in some pride to this city with the hockey club. We know that baseball, football and obviously basketball has done very well lately. And now it is time for hockey to step up and do the same thing."

On Friday night, the Boston Bruins stepped up.

And the best part of it all?

Two of the biggest die-hard fans known to man got to cheer them on from the nosebleeds in the balcony. Sure, my father and I have attended our fair share of regular-season Bruins games but Friday night was our first ever playoff game together in the flesh. It was heaven. There we were, the man that put his son in a Bruins sweater upon birth and his eternal sidekick, waving yellow Bruins towels, screaming for the Black and Gold at the top of our lungs.