Sean Couturier, Carter Hart key Flyers' comeback win over Bruins

For the Flyers, falling into a 2-0 hole has occurred at an alarming rate during their head-scratching season.

It’s not the way wins are usually created, but, hey, comebacks are starting to become commonplace at the Wells Fargo Center.

For the second straight game, the Flyers overcame a 2-0 deficit and rallied for a home victory, this time a 4-3 win over Boston on Wednesday night.

Sean Couturier scored a hat trick, Claude Giroux had two assists – including the 500th of his superb career – and rookie goalie Carter Hart was sensational, as the Flyers defeated a Bruins team that was on a 6-1-1 run.

Hart made 39 saves, a personal best.

“I don’t think it was our best game, but he was huge for us,” left winger Scott Laughton said about the 20-year-old goalie.

The Flyers were outshot by a 42-19 margin, but they blocked 30 shots, including seven by Robert Hagg and five by Ivan Provorov, who also chipped in two assists.

“Everybody was selling themselves and sacrificing their bodies,” Hart said. “As a goalie, I really appreciate it.”

The Flyers won for the third time in the last four games. They have a two-game winning streak for just the fourth time this season and the first time since Dec. 18 to 20.

Couturier scored on a two-on-one with 4 minutes, 7 seconds left in the game to complete his hat trick. It gave the Flyers hat tricks in consecutive games for the first time since 2002. James van Riemsdyk had a hat trick in Monday’s 7-4 comeback win over Minnesota.

Boston got to within 4-3 when Peter Cehlarik scored on a deflection with 66 seconds left, but the Flyers survived.

The Flyers fell into a 2-0 hole for the 20th time in 47 games – a stunning 34.9 percent of the time. They have won three of the 20 games in which they have faced a 2-0 deficit.

Cehlarik and David Pastrnack scored on one-timers after receiving crisp cross-ice passes to give the Bruins an early lead. Hart had no chance on either goal. With the Bruins on a power play because of Jori Lehtera’s tripping penalty, Pastrnak scored from deep inside the left circle after taking a feed from Torey Krug with 15:21 left in the first.

It was Pastrnak’s 27th goal and league-high 13th on the power play.

Less than five minutes later, Cehlarik, just recalled from Providence in the AHL, scored from the right circle to make it 2-0.

But, with 7:16 left in the first period, the Flyers got to within 2-1 on Oskar Lindblom’s first goal in the last 31 games. Giroux picked up a loose puck just inside the blue line and quickly fed Lindblom for a left-circle drive that went just inside the left post. Giroux became the second player in franchise history to collect 500 assists, getting it in his 785th game. Bobby Clarke reached the milestone in his 651st game and finished with 852 assists in his hall of fame career.

Early in the second period, Couturier scored goals 75 seconds apart to put the Flyers ahead, 3-2. It was the 13th multi-goal game in his career.

Couturier tipped in Jake Voracek’s drive to make it 2-2 with 14:28 left in the second. “Good things happen when you go to the net,” said Couturier, who leads the Flyers with 19 goals.

After Hart denied Sean Kuraly on a two-on-one shorthanded chance, the Flyers got an odd-man rush, and Couturier converted Wayne Simmonds’ goal-mouth pass to give the Flyers a 3-2 lead. Giroux collected another assist on the power-play goal.

With 3:12 left in the period, Lehtera received a five-minute boarding penalty for his hit on Donato and also was assessed a game misconduct. The Flyers, led by Couturier, killed off the penalty, limiting the Bruins to just three shots.

The Flyers also killed a too-many-men-on-the-ice penalty early in the third period and a hooking infraction on Laughton with eight minutes left. They had five clears and did not allow a shot on the late Boston power play.

“We’ve been building on our success lately,” Couturier said about a penalty kill that entered the night clicking at 83.8 percent over its last 25 games -- after being successful just 68.5 percent of the time in the season’s first 21 games.