BOSTON, May 4 (UPI) -- Zdeno Chara scored his first two goals of the playoffs Wednesday and Boston rolled to a 5-1 triumph over Philadelphia in their conference semifinal series.
For the second straight season, the Bruins have won the first three games against the Flyers in the Eastern Conference semifinals.
Last year, however, Philadelphia came back to win four in a row and the Bruins became just the third team in NHL history to lose a seven-game series after winning the first three.
Boston will try to complete a series sweep at home Friday. The winner of this series will meet Tampa Bay for the conference title, the Lightning having closed out Washington Wednesday in four games.
Chara opened the scoring with a slap shot 30 seconds into the game and David Krejci added a goal 33 seconds later.
Goals by Daniel Paille and Nathan Horton gave the Bruins a 4-0 lead in the second period and Chara delivered his second goal on the power play with 1:22 left in the third.
Tim Thomas made 37 saves for the Bruins while the Flyers continued to have big problems in front of their net.
For the fifth time in 10 playoff games this season the Flyers pulled their starting goaltender. Brian Boucher gave up four goals on 20 shots before Sergei Bobrovsky came in with 5 minutes left in the second period. Bobrovsky stopped 7-of-8 shots.
