BOSTON — The “D Word” was tossed around quite liberally, Monday night, in the wake of the 3-1 setback the Bruins sustained at the hands of the Philadelphia Flyers.

Not “D as in defense” which has been the key to Boston’s recent success.

And not “D as in disarray” which has been the sorry state of the Flyers, whose disappointing play cost Philly coach John Stevens his job last week.

This “D” stood for desperation.

The Flyers had it, and the B’s didn’t.

Desperation is what made Philly’s three goal outburst in the third period possible.

“They were pushing,” said Boston goalie Tim Thomas, who made 35 stops on a busy night. “They’re a desperate team. They’ve been struggling a lot lately. We knew they were going to push hard. It was hard to match that.”

Said B’s coach Claude Julien, “I don’t think we played as well (in the third). They came out more desperate. We needed to be ready and push harder. They outworked us and made the most of their chances.”

Matters remained scoreless until Vladimir Sobotka’s tally at 18:32 of the second.

Locked up in front of the Flyer net with Philly defenseman Matt Carle, Sobotka was able to reroute a wraparound pass by Shawn Thornton, the former Portland Pirates captain.

“I told ”˜Thorny’ to just put the puck in front,” said Sobotka, “and I’ll be there. I was able to put it in. Lucky goal.”

Philly’s James van Riemsdyk knotted the score, 1-1, at 2:48, when he rapped in Aaron Asham’s centering feed from the right boards.

The goal snapped a 12 game drought for the former UNH star, who was taken second overall in the 2006 NHL Entry Draft.

“It feels good to get this one,” said van Riemsdyk. “I just tried to follow the play across (the crease). Kimmo [Timonen] made a smart play along the wall, and got it to ”˜Ash’. ”˜Ash’ put it right on my tape, and I threw it on net.”

That goal flipped the switch for a full-on Flyer assault, one which resulted in the go ahead goal by Timonen at 10:28, a 60 foot slapshot that beat Thomas cleanly.

Timonen finished the scoring in the final minute by flipping the puck into the open Bruin net.

“I think we played two good periods,” said Sobotka. “But the third one, we just stopped skating.”

EMPTY NETTERS: The teams will meet again on New Year’s Day, outdoors at Fenway Park in the annual NHL Winter Classic. Both teams took the pre-game warmup wearing knitted caps (or touques in hockey parlance) ”¦ Defenseman Dennis Wideman drew cheers from the appreciative Garden crowd, when he blocked three shots in succession during a lengthy Flyer 5-on-3 power play ”¦ Wideman later left the game with an unspecified injury ”¦ The Bruins will head out on a three game road trip (Chicago, Toronto, Ottawa), and will return home Dec. 23 to face Atlanta”¦

— Contact Dan Hickling at dhickling@journaltribune.com.