Bruins blank of struggling Flyers at Garden

Boston dropped to 4-5-1 as it failed to consistently create quality chances against a Philadelphia club that came in giving up nearly 4.5 goals per game, second worst in the NHL.

The good news was that the Bruins stayed out of the penalty box for the first 20 minutes. The flip side is that they also stayed off the score sheet.

Joonas Korpisalo shined early and late as the Boston goaltender made his first start in nearly two weeks.

Korpisalo made back-to-back saves on Philadelphia winger Bobby Brink, first deflecting one with the block and then suffocating the follow-up with his right pad.

It was part of a mini-Flyers flurry made possible by fierce forechecking that kept defensemen Charlie McAvoy and Mason Lohrei on the ice for an extended shift.

Just when it looked like Philly goaltender Samuel Ersson wasn’t going to break a sweat, Cole Koepke woke him up with a facemask shot from the blue line.

Boston made a nice run on a five-on-three power play when Scott Laughton cross-checked Brad Marchand and 23 seconds later Travis Sanheim pulled David Pastrnak down in the slot.

The Bruins were effective with March and had the best chance, only to be denied by Ersson.

The save on the power play came from Korpisalo, who snagged a Garnet Hathaway wrister off a two-on-one from Laughton, who had just burst out of the box.

Ersson denied Pavel Zacha (good feed from Matt Poitras) and Elias Lindholm (point blank off an Andrew Peeke dish), and Peeke sent a screamer off the far post to close out the period.

Korpisalo matched with several Grade A stops, including denying Ryan Poehling on a partial break-in.

Rasmus Ristolainen, last seen hurting Poitras with a big hit at the buzzer of a preseason game, tried to spark the Flyers with a riser from the blue line, but Korpisalo swallowed it.

Pastrnak temporarily disabled Jamie Drysdale with a missile just inside the blue line that hit the Flyers defenseman in the stomach. The Bruins peppered Ersson for a good 30 seconds as Drysdale tried to get to his feet.

He eventually made it to the bench and down the tunnel before coming back a few shifts later.

Philadelphia broke the ice when an unmarked Tyson Foerster snapped a low wrister through Korpisalo’s five-hole.

The Flyers went on the power play seconds later (Koepke for slashing), but were unable to dent Korpisalo and increase their advantage.

Boston got another chance on the power play when Morgan Frost caught Morgan Geekie in the chops with a high stick. Despite having plenty of zone time, the Bruins had zero man-advantage shots and entered the locker room down, 1-0, after 40 minutes.

Jim McBride can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him @globejimmcbride.