For twelve months, the Boston Bruins had to deal with the psychological fallout from squandering a 3-0 series lead against the Philadelphia Flyers.
Now, Claude Julien's team is in the exact same position - against the exact same opponent.
Zdeno Chara and David Krejci scored goals just 63 seconds into Game 3 and the Bruins never looked back en route to a 5-1 win over the Philadelphia Flyers. The Bruins once again have the Flyers on the ropes and can eliminate them as early as Friday night in Game 4.
"We learned from it obviously," said defenceman Johnny Boychuk of last year's disappointment. "The hardest one to win is the fourth one. That was last year and we can learn from it."
"I'm focused on this year. And I'm focused on what we want to accomplish this year. I'll leave the comparisons (to last year) to you guys," said netminder Tim Thomas, who made 37 saves in the victory.
The Flyers were supposed to get a boost with the return of Jeff Carter, their leading goal scorer during the regular season, who had been sidelined with a knee injury for almost two weeks. But Carter was clearly not 100 per cent healthy and was essentially a non-factor for most of the night - though he did register five shots on goal. Andrej Meszaros scored the lone goal for the Flyers - but it came when his team was already trailing by four goals in the second period.
The Flyers will now have to rely on the memories of last year's comeback and hope they still have a mental edge on Boston. If nothing else, these Flyers are well-versed on how to survive in this situation.
"We have to try and win one game and go from there. We can't think about winning four games in a row. We're not going to win four games on Friday," said forward Daniel Briere.
"I'll throw a whole bunch of cliches at you. One game at a time, one day at a time, one period at a time. That's all we can really think about," added Sean O'Donnell. "We have to try and win a period, then a game. And hopefully get to a game five."
It would appear as though Peter Laviolette has no choice but to use rookie netminder Sergei Bobrovsky in Game 4. Brian Boucher was pulled in the second period of Wednesday's game, after giving up four goals on 20 shots. Bobrovsky looked sharp in relief, stopping seven of the eight shots he faced.
Even though he got little support from his teammates - particularly with breakdowns that led to the first two goals - Boucher was willing to take the blame himself.
"I don't worry about the defensive breakdowns. My job is to try and stop the puck," said Boucher.
After starting this post-season a pair of losses on home ice, the Bruins have now reeled off seven wins in their last eight games. Even their much-maligned power play, which hadn't produced a goal in the 2011 playoffs, produced a goal on Wednesday night. Albeit, it was a meaningless 5-on-3 goal scored in the final minute of regulation. But Zdeno Chara's marker snapped an 0-for-30 post-season drought for Boston.
