By Fluto Shinzawa

In a ruthless and efficient manner, the Bruins punted the Flyers from the playoffs and advanced to the Eastern Conference finals against Tampa Bay with a 5-1 win before 17,565 at TD Garden. Soon after the fifth goal — Daniel Paille vultured an empty-netter from Gregory Campbell with an inadvertent tip — Philadelphia’s season was over. By night’s end, the Bruins were shaking hands with the Flyers before the Broad Street Bullies even had time to spit on their gloves and flaunt their standard surliness in the four-game series.

The Bruins haven’t appeared in the conference finals since 1992.

Last year, the Bruins gave the Flyers life. This season, the only thing the Bruins handed over was rope with which to choke off the Flyers.

This was no slow death, like dumping a lobster into a pot of water and turning on the gas. This was a knife to the back of its head.

“I think the good thing for us in this series is that whenever they had some life, had a few shifts, and looked like they were getting momentum, we took it right back,’’ said Campbell. “That was a strong point made by our team.’’

The dark point, however, took place early in the third period. Claude Giroux buried Patrice Bergeron with an open-ice hit. Bergeron got up slowly, then skated off the ice on his own. He never returned. Coach Claude Julien said he had no updates on the condition of Bergeron, who has suffered two concussions in the past.

The Bruins cannot afford the loss of Bergeron. The center has been their most valuable and complete player in the playoffs.

If Bergeron is unavailable for the start of the third round, the Bruins will need their other centermen to assume more responsibilities. Campbell is one such center.

In the first period, when the game was scoreless, Campbell broke to the front of the net and stood his ground. For his efforts, Campbell was rewarded with a cross-check to the back by Daniel Carcillo at 11:31.

Not only did Campbell feel the impact of Carcillo’s twig between the shoulders, he also fell facefirst into one of the Philadelphia defensemen. The fall opened a gash next to Campbell’s right eye that required stitches. After the game, the area around Campbell’s eye was raked and bloody.

Campbell welcomed the pain.

“Absolutely,’’ said Campbell when asked if he accepted the beating. “Yeah.’’

That’s because 31 seconds later, Campbell received the ultimate reward for his net-front punishment: his team scoring a goal. With Carcillo in the box, the Bruins executed some lightning-quick passing down low. David Krejci took a pass from Tomas Kaberle, pulled off the left wall, and found Nathan Horton to the side of the net.

Just as Horton received the puck, he whipped it to Milan Lucic in front. With Flyers defenseman Kimmo Timonen down and out, Lucic winged his first goal of the playoffs past goalie Sergei Bobrovsky at 12:02 to give the Bruins a 1-0 lead.

“It was a big goal for us,’’ Campbell said. “It was the first goal. That’s been big all playoffs. For us, we had to play disciplined. They came out hard. They tried to make us take those penalties in retaliating. We wanted to walk away and suck it up. Then either play on the power play or five-on-five.’’

A Brad Marchand turnover led to Kris Versteeg’s tying goal at 13:22 of the second. But like they did the entire series, the Bruins never wobbled from one of the Flyers’ best punches. Instead, they came back firing.

“We had control of the game,’’ said Marchand. “That’s all a team needs, a little opportunity like that. They capitalize on it. They’re pretty good at that. But it was good that even after that, we were able to come through.’’

In the third, after the Bruins won an offensive-zone faceoff, Michael Ryder whacked the puck out to Johnny Boychuk at the right point. Before Flyers forward Scott Hartnell could close the gap and get in front of Boychuk’s shot, the defenseman wound up and ripped one of his signature slap shots. Bobrovsky could only wave at Boychuk’s blast, which was the winning goal at 2:42 of the third.

“That was a big goal,’’ said Julien. “That lifted the whole bench. Johnny’s got a good shot. We know the success he’s had in the American League in the past on the power play. For a good portion of the season here, he didn’t seem to find that range or even those opportunities to use his shot. That kind of took away some of his opportunities on the power play.’’

The Bruins throttled whatever life remained in Philly’s lungs late in the third. Horton took the puck off the boards and hit Lucic. The left wing wasted little time tucking his second goal of the night behind Bobrovsky at 15:03. Two empty-netters followed.

“We knew they were going to fight for their lives,’’ Lucic said. “They were going to throw the kitchen sink at us. They were going to press and press. We were just talking on the bench, saying, ‘Keep cool. Keep making plays. Just make good, hard, smart plays.’ ’’

Warmer weather may have arrived. But the Bruins sent a message with their sweep. It’s still winter.

Klein, Jeff

BOSTON -- The Bruins exorcised some very persistent demons Friday night. It is too soon to tell if they have done so as thoroughly as the Red Sox did when they overcame nearly a century of futility by rallying from three games down in a playoff series against the Yankees in 2004.

But when the Bruins beat Philadelphia, 5-1, on Friday night to complete a series sweep, they nullified the bitter memory of last year's playoff collapse against the Flyers, when they blew a three-game lead and fell to perhaps the most ignominious defeat in their nine decades of existence. They also vanquished another demon, the one tailing them since 1992, the last time they won two series in the same postseason.

"This is a huge win for our organization," said forward Milan Lucic, who scored twice. "The last few years we've been looking for this eighth win of the playoffs to get into the third round, and we were able to get that job done tonight.

The Bruins, who have not won the Stanley Cup since 1972, will now face the Tampa Bay Lightning in the Eastern Conference finals.

The game was much closer than the final score, inflated by three late Boston goals, indicated. The key goal came on a slap shot from the blue line by Bruins defenseman Johnny Boychuk that broke a 1-1 tie at 2 minutes 42 seconds of the third period.

Boychuk received the puck off a draw in the Flyers' end and fired. His shot nicked the stick of Philadelphia defenseman Kimmo Timonen and zipped over the flashing glove of goalie Sergei Bobrovsky, breaking the tie and sending those demons to flight.

"Soon as we scored everybody got going again, and we needed that," Boychuk said of his tie-breaking goal.

It was Boychuk's second goal of the playoffs, but the Flyers still had hope until Milan Lucic scored with just under five minutes to play. It was Lucic's second goal of the game.

Lucic had 30 goals during the regular season, but these were his first two of the playoffs. He had been one of only two Bruins forwards not to score in this postseason.

Brad Marchand and Daniel Paille added empty-net goals, and Bruins fans, certain that last year's events would not repeat themselves, put up a joyous din.

But afterward Boston's top defenseman, Zdeno Chara, said last year wasn't even on the Bruins' mind.

"To be honest with you, nobody was really talking about last year," Chara said. "We were just trying to stay focused on taking it one game at a time."

Boston Coach Claude Julien said it would take the Bruins' best effort of the series to close out the Flyers, and in many ways, this was. It was the only time in four games that the Bruins outshot the Flyers.

Lucic opened the scoring on the second of three Boston power plays in the first period.

But the Flyers equalized with the only goal of the second period, when Kris Versteeg finished a two-on-one break after the Bruins' Brad Marchand gave the puck away to Mike Richards.

It was also Versteeg's first playoff goal. He scored 21 times in the regular season, his first with Philadelphia after winning the Stanley Cup with Chicago last season.

In Game 4 of last year's series, the Flyers averted elimination with a 5-4 win on an overtime goal by Simon Gagne, now with Tampa Bay. That victory, on May 7, 2010, started them on their way to becoming just the third team in N.H.L. history to win a series after being down three games.

Gagne is one of five players in the Flyers lineup that night who were not on the ice Friday. The group included Chris Pronger, who has been out with an injury since Game 2, and Brian Boucher, who was replaced by the rookie Sergei Bobrovsky as the Philadelphia goaltending carousel kept turning.

It was the first start of the series for the Flyers rookie Bobrovsky, after he came in to relieve Brian Boucher in each of the first three games. Bobrovsky stopped 22 of 25 Boston shots.

While the Flyers skated 14 of the same players Friday as they did for last year's Game 4, the Bruins had only nine returners.

Seven of the Bruins' newcomers were off-season acquisitions: Marchand, Gregory Campbell, Tomas Kaberle, Chris Kelly, Shane Hnidy, Nick Peverley and Nathan Horton, who had never played in the postseason in six previous years in the N.H.L., all with Florida, but scored two overtime goals in the opening round against Montreal.

Two were injured for last year's game but have played key roles this season: defenseman Dennis Seidenberg, the effective partner for Zdeno Chara; and David Krejci, whose assist on Lucic's first goal gave him a series-high 9 points.

And the other is goalie Tim Thomas, who was on the bench last year.

Thomas stopped 22 of 23 shots Friday. In this year's series against the Flyers, he turned aside 142 of 149 shots, a .953 save percentage. That followed a regular season in which Thomas set an N.H.L. record with a .938 save percentage.