The Philadelphia Flyers were winless in their first four games of March when they took the ice at TD Garden on Thursday night against their archrivals. At the opposite end lay the Bruins, with four straight W’s — three in overtime — under their belts.
The clash marked the Black and Gold’s fifth game of a six-game homestand — their longest of the season — and the first of three contests in less than 72 hours, with a matinee home-and-home series against the Blackhawks coming up this weekend.
Thursday saw another case of Bruce Cassidy shuffling all hands on deck; he welcomed Tuukka Rask back from a minor lower-body injury, while David Backes — with a three-game suspension for Tuesday’s hit on Frans Nielsen of the Red Wings — joined Patrice Bergeron and Charlie McAvoy on the sidelines.