You can see where this is going, right?

It’s starting to become so clear.

We are just three weeks into the two-month war of attrition that is the Stanley Cup playoffs, but a nice black-and-gold picture is starting to develop.

The Bruins and Jumbo Joe Thornton’s San Jose Sharks have moved to the head of the pack in the chase for the Cup.

The two teams that won their respective conferences last season — only to be swiftly eliminated in the first two rounds of the postseason — have managed to do something that the other teams fighting through the playoffs this year have not done.

They have held serve at home. And in the NHL, that’s a rare deal.

Thanks to Milan Lucic’s rapid fire goal with just 2:57 to play Monday, the Bruins were able to take a 3-2 victory over the Flyers and snare a 2-0 lead in the Eastern Conference semifinals in the process.

The win moved the Bruins to a 5-0 playoff record at home and allowed the B’s to swiftly cut against the grain of ineptitude showcased by other home teams around the league.

Entering play Monday, road teams were 29-26 this playoff year. All eight of the teams that had home-ice advantage in the opening round lost it by losing one of their first two home games.

Two of the teams with home ice in the second round — Pittsburgh and Chicago — squandered that advantage – with only San Jose and the Bruins managing to actually take a 2-0 series lead when presented with home ice advantage.

That type of advantage matters in the NHL. Since 1942, there have been 302 teams that have had a 2-0 series lead in a best-of-seven series. Those teams have gone on to win that series 262 times, a 86.8 percent level of success.

Just like that, TD Garden has become one of the rare NHL buildings where Stanley Cup visions start to take form.

“We want to win so bad, we want to show that we really, really care,” said center David Krejci when asked about the Bruins recent success at home. “The best moments come from the opportunities and we have a great opportunity here to make something good happen. We just go out there and play the game as hard as we can. It’s so much fun, we don’t want to stop we want to keep going.”

There are many reasons the Bruins are finding success on Garden ice this spring — the goaltending of Tuukka Rask, a league best defense, top-notch penalty killing — but by the far the biggest development of late on Causeway Street has been the emergence of the B’s offensive punch.

After generating a league-worst 2.39 goals-per-game during the regular season, the Bruins are now averaging three goals per game in the playoffs, second only to the Sharks for goal scoring production in the postseason.

The play of Krejci’s line has been a big part of that improvement. Aside from assisting on Lucic’s game-winner Monday, right wing Miroslav Satan also gave the Bruins a 2-1 lead in the second period with his fourth goal of the playoffs.

Satan has eight points (4 goals, 4 assists) in the last five games, Krejci has five points (3 goals, 2 assists) in his last three games and now Lucic is scoring.

A good mix could be getting even better as the trio meshes its considerable skill and grit.

“Ever since we got put together I think we found some chemistry,” said Lucic. “It’s been a great thing for us, we want to contribute, we want to step up our game and be big players for this team. In order to do that we need to have trust in one another and play with confidence.”

Satan, a Slovakian player has a similar European base to his game as that of Krejci, a native of the Czech Republic, allowing them to quickly connect.

“I think he grew up in the same environment as me and basically in the same hockey school,” explained Satan.” So I think can understand him well, you know, anticipate what he’s going to do and he knows what I’m going to do, so you know, we can be a little bit ahead.”

Lucic has also developed a good sense at to the style his linemates play.

“Three completely different players, sometimes that’s what works for a line to play good together,” said Lucic. “They’re both skill guys, they both show they can put up a lot of points in the NHL but they also do a good job of keeping things simple. They use me the most by keeping things simple.”

Krejci agrees that the formula works.

“Lucic is easy to get used to, he does what he does best, he goes in the corner and gets us the puck,” said Krejci, who actually dug the puck out and centered it for Lucic’s to launch his game winner. “He gets the puck and then he gets open.”

Of course there has been more to the B’s jump-started offense than just one line.

As was the case in Game 1, the Bruins were able to grab an early lead. Once again that advantage resulted from Patrice Bergeron winning a faceoff, this time back to Johnny Boychuk for a wrist shot goal just 5:12 after the opening faceoff.

It was the first goal of the playoffs for Boychuk, while Bergeron now has eight points (3 goals, 5 assists) in the Bruins eight postseason games. (Dennis Wideman also has eight points (1 goal, 7 assists) in the B’s eight playoff games.)

 

Add it all up and the Bruins head to Philadelphia with six playoff wins now in the books — halfway to playing in the Cup finals.