BOSTON, May 6 (UPI) -- Milan Lucic scored twice Friday to complete a battering of Philadelphia goaltenders and send Boston into the conference finals with a 5-1 win over the Flyers.
The Bruins finished off a sweep of the Eastern Conference semifinals and set up a duel with Tampa Bay, with the winner earning a chance to play for the Stanley Cup. Tampa Bay swept its semifinal series against Washington.
The conference finals will bring together teams that were seeded third and fifth in the playoffs.
Boston outscored Philadelphia in the four games 20-7 and victimized Sergei Bobrovsky in the series finale.
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Lucic scored on the power play midway through the first period for his first goal of the series and then tallied with 4:57 to play in the third to give Boston a 3-1 lead. The Bruins added empty-net goals in the final 2 minutes by Brad Marchand and Daniel Paille.
Boston reached the conference finals for the first time in 19 years and the Bruins gained some revenge in the process.
The Bruins had a 3-0 lead in the conference semifinals against Philadelphia last year, then lost four games in a row. Boston became only the third team in NHL history to lose a seven-game series after winning the first three.
Tim Thomas wound up a solid series by making 22 saves. He stopped 135-of-142 shots in the four games.
Philadelphia suffered its first series sweep since 1997, when the Flyers failed to win a game against Detroit in the Stanley Cup Finals. Boston is trying to win its first Stanley Cup in 39 years.
