Flyers pushed into 0-2 hole

BOSTON - A broken pipe has left two million folks in greater Boston without drinkable water, but the city's hockey team is methodically quenching its thirst for a date in the Eastern Conference finals.

Milan Lucic scored with 2 minutes, 57 seconds left as the surging Boston Bruins defeated the Flyers, 3-2, Monday night before a roaring sellout crowd at the TD Garden. The second straight one-goal win gave the Bruins a lead of two games to none in the highly physical best-of-seven conference semifinal.

Lucic, a 21-year-old left winger, scored on a spin-around shot from the high slot to snap a 2-2 tie.

"It was more a relief than anything else," said Lucic, whose team, in effect, has won all six playoff games this year by one goal. One was a two-goal win with an empty-netter.

Lucic scored on a shift against the Flyers' third defensive pairing of Ryan Parent and Lukas Krajicek, a duo that had problems clearing the zone before the winger uncorked his game-winner past stunned goalie Brian Boucher.

"I didn't pick it up right away," said Boucher, his words barely above a whisper, in the Flyers' somber locker room. "I was a little deep, and it was above my pad and below my blocker there, a tough spot to get [it]. I wish I would have picked it up a little sooner."

It was the second straight gut-wrenching loss for the Flyers, who dropped a 5-4 overtime decision in Game 1.

The Flyers have yet to lead at any point in the series; they trailed, 1-0, and, 2-1, on Monday, but Mike Richards and Danny Briere - the only Flyers to score in the two games - netted goals to tie it. Richards made it 1-1 with a goal with 2:54 left in the first period, and Briere forced a 2-2 tie by scoring with 24.8 seconds left in the middle period.

"We need to battle that much harder," said defenseman Chris Pronger, who was plus-2 on the night. "We knew it wasn't going to be easy coming in here."

Game 3 will be Wednesday at the Wachovia Center.

Like in the opener, the Flyers had little offense in the latter stages of the game. They were outshot, 11-5, in the third period and seemed to be out of sync because they had to kill two penalties - one for too many men on the ice, the other for a hooking infraction on Briere.

The Flyers, 0-7 in playoff games in Boston since 1976, killed both penalties - and all five Boston power plays - but it prevented them from getting into any offensive flow.

The Flyers had stressed the importance of getting off to a better start than in Game 1, but they fell into a quick 1-0 hole on a goal by rookie defenseman Johnny Boychuk.

The goal was set up when Richards was tossed out of the face-off circle - he refused to explain why he was chased - and replaced by Scott Hartnell. For the Flyers, it was not a good trade. Patrice Bergeron easily won the draw and sent the puck to Boychuk, whose drive from above the left circle beat Boucher to the short side with 14:48 remaining in the first period.

Boucher may have been screened.

Just before the goal, the Flyers had taken play away and were applying pressure on goalie Tuukka Rask.

Flyers coach Peter Laviolette, unhappy with the team's wide-open style in Game 1, made some major line-juggling in the opening period, using about a dozen combinations as he tried to find the right mix.

Late in the first period, he found one. The just-formed Ville Leino-Richards-Briere unit got a good cycle working and produced the game-tying goal on a dazzling play by Richards.

Richards circled behind the net and wheeled around to the right circle and whipped a shot past Rask with 2:54 left in the first period, knotting the score at 1-1.

With 14:05 left in the second period, the Flyers got a break when they somehow received a power play after a slashing call against Marc Savard. Dan Carcillo went after Savard and threw a couple punches but was not sent to the penalty box.

But just like in their first three power plays, the Flyers did little with the extra attacker.

Less than four minutes after the penalty expired, Miro Satan gave Boston a 2-1 lead by scoring his 20th career playoff goal. Satan scored from the right circle - a goal that Boucher would like to have back.

The Flyers did a nice job killing off a Briere slashing penalty late in the second period. Seventeen seconds after he came out of the penalty box, Briere took a feed from Leino and blasted a right-circle shot past Rask. That tied the score at 2-all and silenced the crowd.