Flyers

Mason Comes Up Huge for Flyers To Even Series

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Flyers Goalie Comes up with 37 Saves in 2-1 win over the New York Rangers

By Chris Murray
For the Chris Murray Report and the Philadelphia Sunday Sun

Steve Mason had 37 saves in win over the New York Rangers Friday night. Photo by Webster Riddick.

Steve Mason had 37 saves in win over the New York Rangers Friday night. Photo by Webster Riddick.

PHILADELPHIA—Until further notice, a horrible game or the end of the Flyers playoff run, Steve Mason is your goalie. Period—end of discussion. There is no goalie controversy in this part of South Philly.

In a must-win situation, Mason did his part stopping 37 shots on goal and the offensive did just enough to support his outstanding effort.

Jakub Voracek’s second-period power-play goal gave the Flyers a 2-1 win over the New York Rangers Friday night at the Wells Fargo Center to even the best-of-seven first-round Stanley Cup playoff series at two games apiece.

With the way, the Rangers were attacking the Flyers net in Friday’s Game 4, Mason simply shut New York down for most of the game.

“He’s been great for us all year long, he’s very strong mentally and he showed that tonight,” said right winger Wayne Simmonds.

The two teams will lock horns in a pivotal Game 5 matchup at Madison Square Garden in New York on Sunday at noon. After having ended a three-year losing streak on the Rangers home ice in Game 2, the Flyers say they are confident that they come away with a win.

“That’s huge getting that win in New York the last time we played there,” Simmonds said. “It’s not on our minds anymore and we’re going to be focused on the game and making sure we do all the right things to be prepared for the game.”

On a night when the Flyers were out-shot by the Rangers 38-25, Mason, who hadn’t played in two weeks, was simply superb, especially after he allowed the game’s first goal by Rangers center Dominic Moore four minutes into the game. That would be New York’s first and only lead of the game. Mason slammed the door on the Rangers for the rest of the night.

“(Mason) played a great game, made some big saves and got some momentum for us when we were playing on our heels a little bit,” said Matt Read, who scored the Flyers first goal in the opening period. “He played a great 60 minutes, he battles in there and he does the right thing. It’s good to see him back and healthy.”

Mason also got help from a tenacious Flyers defense which blocked 14 shots and got physical with the Rangers when they approached the Flyers net. Even when the Flyers lost Nicklas Grossman for the rest of the game with an upper-body injury in the second period, Philadelphia was relentless on defense.

“They did a great job with the blocked shots and the guys picking up the slack after we lost (Grossman),” Mason said. “It’s a big loss. The guy logs a lot of minutes and blocks a lot of shots.

The guys picked up big where he would have left off. Those are the type of efforts come playoff time that you need to be successful.”

A more physical Flyers team came up really big early in the third period when the Rangers had a four-on-three power-play opportunity, but Mason, who had a stick save in that sequence, and the defense successfully killed the penalty.

“Our defense did a good job tonight,” said Flyers head coach Craig Berube. “I thought they broke the puck out well. They were physical down low. Most of their chances were rushed chances and that’s the just coverage and the neutral zone. Our D battled hard and did what they had to do.”

On the offensive end, the Flyers did just enough scoring to win the game. Voracek’s goal with 12:38 left in the second period turned out to be the winning score. The score happened when he guided in a shot from Braydon Schenn into the goal past Rangers net-minder Henrik Lundqvist.

“I was wide open, Schenn made a good heads up play and I tipped it,” Voracek said.

After the Rangers took a 1-0 lead, the Flyers tied on the game on a goal by Read, who rebounded a shot from Jason Akeson that hit the board behind the Rangers net. Read shot it over the left glove of Lindqvist.

 

Flyers Bounce Back From Bad Loss to Upend the Rangers

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By  Chris Murray

For the Chris Murray Report and the Philadelphia Sunday Sun

PHILADELPHIA—After getting blasted by the San Jose Sharks on Thursday, the Flyers had a good start, a shaky middle, and a strong finish to upend the New York Rangers 4-2 Saturday afternoon at the Wells Fargo Center.

Wayne Simmonds scored a goal and assisted on another score in the Flyers 4-2 win over the New York Rangers.

Wayne Simmonds scored a goal and assisted on another score in the Flyers 4-2 win over the New York Rangers.

“I think our guys have good character,” said Flyers head coach Craig Berube. “There’s three or four games like (the San Jose game) this year and we came back and had a real good game.  I was pretty confident that we would come out and play hard.”

Luke Schenn and Wayne Simmonds scored the game’s final two goals to break open a 2-2 tie to put the Flyers (31-24-6) to within a point of the Rangers (33-25-3) in the Metropolitan Division standings. It was Simmonds goal with 6:43 left in the second that put the Flyers on top for good. Schenn’s third-period score sealed it for the Flyers.

For the first five minutes, it looked like the Flyers were headed to a continuation of Thursday’s loss to the Sharks.  Flyers left winger Scott Hartnell committed a pair of penalties and gave a Rangers squad that knows how to score on the power-play two opportunities to put them in an early hole.

But on the both occasions, the Flyers killed the Rangers early power-play chances thanks to their defense and the goaltending of Steve Mason, who came up with some saves.

“It’s not the way you want to start a game because we’re setting ourselves back, but when you’re able to kill penalties against an extremely talented power-play in the first couple of minutes of the games, it was a good feeling moving forward,” said Mason, who finished the game with 33 saves.

Despite being outshot early in the game, the penalty kills fired up the Flyers offense midway through the opening period. First, Vincent Lecavalier scored a goal following up a shot at the point by Simmonds with 13:04 left in the period.

A little over a minute later, Sean Couturier scored the Flyers second goal on a breakaway after he took a pass from Matt Read at center ice to put his team up 2-0.  Simmonds said stopping the Rangers on the power-play got the Flyers offense going.

“We know that they have a great power-play, but our penalty kill has been great all year long,” said Simmonds, who had a goal and an assist in the game. “We take too many penalties as a team as it is and our penalty kill goes out there time after time and bails out of the situation. After that, we just want to get our legs going…we start rolling four lines and everything started clicking after that.”

In the second period, the Flyers experience a lull that enabled the Rangers to get back in the game.  The Rangers got on the board on a goal by left winger Chris Kreider. New York tied the game on a power-play goal by right winger Derick Brassard off a pass from center Brad Richards with 7:18 left in the period.

Even though the second stanza was dominated by the Rangers, the Flyers jumped back into the lead with 6: 43 left in the period on a power-play goal by Simmonds who took a pass from Brayden Schenn at left wing circle and hit a slap-shot past Rangers goalie Henrik Lundquist, who played the Flyers tough in recent years.

“I was looking for (Jakub Voracek) back door, but no one even came to me so I thought I was just shoot it as hard as I can and if worse comes to worse there’s a rebound off to (Voracek), but luckily it went in,” Simmonds said.

 

 

Flyers Scoring Slump Continues in Loss to New Jersey

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By Chris Murray

For the Chris Murray Report and the Philadelphia Sunday

Wayne Simmonds said Flyers are thinking too much during scoring slump.

Wayne Simmonds said Flyers are thinking too much during scoring slump.

PHILADELPHIA—Statistics that say that you have a probability to lose under certain circumstances are only true when your team finds itself in said situation and makes that stat true.

Coming into Thursday’s game against the New Jersey Devils, the Flyers were 0-6 when the other team scores first. Given the Flyers inability to put the puck in the net on a regular basis, there is always a high probability that they would be finding themselves on the losing end of the score again.

Now make it 0-7.

Just one-minute and 57 seconds into the game, New Jersey got on the board first when Adam Henrique deflected a shot from teammate Eric Gelinas that got past Flyers goaltender Ray Emery.  That gave the Devils what could construed as an “insurmountable” 1-0 lead given the Flyers lack of scoring punch.

New Jersey got two more goals in the third period from Cam Janssen and a late empty-netter by Jaromir Jagr to complete a 3-0 shutout of a Flyers squad that couldn’t seem to find a way to score against an aging Martin Brodeur (22 saves). The 19,604 fans gathered at the Wells Fargo Center voiced their frustration by serenading their team with boos as they walked off the ice.

“It just means we’re not doing our jobs,” said Flyers right winger Wayne Simmonds. “The fans react to what they see and it’s not good enough.”

It marked the second straight home game in which the Flyers did not score a goal. They haven’t scored on their home ice since an Oct. 29 loss to the Anaheim Ducks.

After the game, the Flyers had a players’ only meeting to figure out how they can break out of their scoring woes. Simmonds, who would not elaborate on what was said during the confab, said the team’s inability to put the puck in the net is more of a mental issue than anything else.

“We’re not penetrating, we’re not getting quality shots,” Simmonds said. “I think we’re thinking too much about passing instead of shooting. When things aren’t going for you tend to pull up for the extra play instead of just throwing stuff at the net. When you get bounces, you get stuff off other team’s skates and sticks. You get the dirty goals. I think that’s where we gotta start. It starts in practice (Friday). I think we gotta come to practice tomorrow. We gotta stop in front of the nets and bury every puck we can.”

Whether the players-only meeting will eventually help the Flyers remains to be seen, but they have to start somewhere.

“The only way I know is to work hard and play hard for your teammates,” said Flyers defenseman Hal Gill. “That’s what we gotta keep working on and find a way to make the puck drop and get that first goal. Things are going to come, we’re going to get guys to score goals. I think we believe that we just have to fight through the times that it’s not happening.”

The one area that really killed the Flyers was their inability to put together anything on their power-play opportunities. Not only were they 0-for-3 on the power play, they could only manage three shots. Head coach Craig Berube was not pleased with his team’s effort with the man-advantage Thursday night.

“We got outplayed and outworked,” Berube said. “That can’t happen. I think there’s some games, if you go back, the power-play looked good, but the puck didn’t go in. On a consistent night, you got to outwork the penalty kill. You go to create momentum for your team. We did not do that tonight.”

Rock Bottom: Capitals Shutout Flyers in Fight-Filled Contest

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By Chris Murray

For the Chris Murray Report and the Philadelphia Sunday Sun

Steve Mason gives up to goal to Washington's Jason Chimera as the Capitals scored five goals in the second period. Photo by Webster Riddick.

Steve Mason gives up to goal to Washington’s Jason Chimera as the Capitals scored five goals in the second period. Photo by Webster Riddick.

PHILADELPHIA—With Washington’s prolific goal-scorer Alexander Ovechkin out with an upper body injury and his teammates playing the final game of a five-game road trip, you would think that this would be an opportunity for the Flyers to score a few goals and possibly steal a win.

The Flyers were also hoping that left winger Steve Downie, who was acquired by the Flyers from the Colorado Avalanche in a trade for Max Talbot, would provide some scoring punch. That didn’t work either. He left the game in the second period and was taken to Pennsylvania Hospital to be treated for concussion symptoms.

Instead, the only team doing the stealing was the Capitals who took what they wanted in a 7-0 shutout of the Flyers in front of 19, 702 disgruntled fans at the Well Fells Fargo Center.  The fans took their disgust out on team general manager Paul Holmgren by chanting, “Fire Holmgren.”

“I can’t blame the fans,” Holmgren said. “We’re as frustrated as they are.”

The booing and chanting came during the second period when Washington (6-7-0) scored five goals to pretty much end the competitive portion of the game. The fortunes of a team that can’t score got even more complicated by their inability to stop the other team from putting the puck in the net.

In short, the Flyers (3-9-0) got their collective rear-ends handed to them on the scoreboard. It was no doubt the low point of what has been tough season.

“It can’t get a whole lot lower, can it?”  Flyers head coach Craig Berube asked rhetorically after the game. “Everybody’s been involved in these games before. You can’t sit there and dwell upon it. You gotta play a game (Saturday against the New Jersey Devils). Compete tomorrow, work real hard. That’s what you do.”

Speaking of Holmgren, he addressed the team during the second intermission to express his own disgust at the way the Flyers were playing.

“We played pretty good for 15 minutes. Once they scored their first goal, we just stopped playing,” Holmgren said. “We were afraid to play the game. We were afraid to make plays. We were afraid to battle for pucks, afraid to skate after pucks. It was tough to watch. I’m sure the players are very embarrassed.”

Flyers goalie Ray Emery engages in a brawl with Capitals goalie Braden Holtby. Photo by Webster Riddick.

Flyers goalie Ray Emery engages in a brawl with Capitals goalie Braden Holtby. Photo by Webster Riddick.

The only thing Flyers fans had to cheer about was a third-period melee which resulted in 114 minutes of penalties. For the game, the teams had 164 minutes worth of penalties.  It started with Wayne Simmonds fighting Capitals right winger Tom Wilson and that escalated into a brawl between Vincent LeCavalier and Caps defenseman Steve Olesky.  Just as Brayden Schenn was mixing it up with Washington defenseman Alexander Urbom, Flyers goalie Ray Emery sprinted down the ice to put a beat down on Capitals net-minder Braden Holtby.

“As a group we were frustrated tonight, our fans are frustrated,” Emery said. “Things didn’t go our way. We all grew up playing hockey and sometimes that happens. We don’t take losses like that.”

Berube said the third period brawl showed that his team wasn’t going to lay down and quit.

“They care,” Berube said. “They’re frustrated. That’s what it boils down to.”

Vincent LeCavalier gets into a brawl with Capitals defenseman Steve Olesky in the third period of a 7-0 loss to Washington. Photo by Webster Riddick.

Vincent LeCavalier gets into a brawl with Capitals defenseman Steve Olesky in the third period of a 7-0 loss to Washington. Photo by Webster Riddick.

Added Holmgren: “They were getting slapped around. It’s a response. Do I have an issue with it? No.”

If this game was scored on a 10-point must system, the Flyers would have won hands down. It’s too bad the Flyers can’t score the way they can fight. If they shot pucks into the net the way their fists hit the faces of Capitals players, they might be Stanley Cup contenders. The video of this brawl will probably go viral on social media sites and will also go to the NHL offices for possible suspensions.

Two Washington players Nicklas Backstrum and Joel Ward had hat-tricks against the Flyers defense.

In the first period, the Flyers out shot Washington 8-4, but when the clock hit zero to end the period, it was the Capitals with a 1-0 lead.  With 2:32 left in the period, Washington was able to get on the board when Nate Schmidt took the puck that caromed off the stick of  Simmonds and passed it to Erat Martin, who found Backstrom in front of the circle to left of the goal. Backstrum shot the puck past Mason for the score.

What made things even more disheartening was that the Flyers held the Capitals without a shot on goal for the game’s first 15 minutes.

“We played pretty good (in the first period), they got the goal, we didn’t respond,” Berube said. “That’s what I saw.”

Things didn’t get any better for the Flyers in that fateful second period either as Washington exploded to score five goals-three within the first five minutes of the period. The Caps scored the first of those goals in 1:24 of the period when Ward got in a shot past Mason.  A little over a minute later, left winger Jason Chimera scored to make it a 3-0.

That goal got Mason pulled from the game, but that didn’t stop the Capitals from scoring. Backstrum got his second goal on another shot between the blue line and circle that went past Ray Emery. Just five minutes into the second period the Capitals had an insurmountable 4-0 lead.

Washington added two more goals-including Backstrum’s third and another in the third to complete the rout.

 

Flyers Scoring Slump Continues in Loss to Pittsburgh

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By Chris Murray

For the Chris Murray Report and the Philadelphia Sunday Sun

Flyers Forward Wayne Simmonds deflects a shot from Claude Giroux past Pittsburgh's Marc-Andre Fleury for the Flyers only goal of the game. Photo by Webster Riddick.

Flyers Forward Wayne Simmonds deflects a shot from Claude Giroux past Pittsburgh’s Marc-Andre Fleury for the Flyers only goal of the game. Photo by Webster Riddick.

PHILADELPHIA—Coming into Thursday night’s game, Flyers captain Claude Giroux said that a win over the Pittsburgh Penguins would be a turning a point for a Flyers team that is at the bottom of the Metropolitan Division standings.

For a 1-7 Flyers squad, the ability to put the puck in the net on a consistent basis would be the first step to salvage a season that appears to be going nowhere fast.

The Flyers 4-1 loss to the Penguins at the Wells Fargo Center wasn’t what Giroux was hoping for because his team, in spite of its best efforts, simply could not score more than one goal.   It was yet another night of trying to make sense of a scoring slump that seems to have no end in sight.

“I think if we would have won that game, it would have been a big turning point, but it didn’t happen,” Giroux said. “We gotta lot of time to look at tapes and look at what we’re doing wrong. I think if we play 60 minutes, responsible and disciplined about our game, we’ll be fine. We’ll start winning games. It’s just a matter of time. We just need to start believing it before we start playing.”

The good news for the Flyers is that they are off for the next six days and will have some time to figure out a way out of their scoring slump.

“You’ve got to pick your head up and come to work and get ready to play,” said Flyers head coach Craig Berube. “They’re the only guys that are going to dig us out of this hole- the guys in the locker room. They gotta start believing in each other and believe in themselves and playing hockey like they can.”

Meanwhile, Flyers goalie Steve Mason did everything he could to keep the Flyers in the game. He had 32 saves, but allowed three goals. When you’re offense is not scoring, a goalie’s best efforts are not enough.

“It’s not easy right now. We’re struggling to create offense and I’m trying to make the save I need to make and just be patient and eventually, it’ll come,” Mason said. “When you’re only scoring one goal a game, it’s tough to win hockey games. It puts pressure on us in the defensive zone and we’re going have to start creating opportunities to score.”

After a scoreless first period, the Penguins jumped out to a 2-0 lead on goals by Jussin Jokinen on a pass from center Eveni Malkin with 10:17 left in the period. Malkin snatched the puck away from Michael Raffl near the blue line and passed it to Jokinen, who slapped the puck past Mason for the score.

Three minutes later, Penguins forward Chris Kunitz rebounded a shot by Matt Niskanen past Mason for Pittsburgh’s second goal of the period.

In that second period, the Flyers played poorly on both offense and defense. They managed just five shots on goal in the period and just seemed lifeless.

“We were brutal,” said Flyers forward Wayne Simmonds. “We weren’t executing, weren’t getting pucks deep. We turned over pucks in the neutral zone. They’re a good transition team. We couldn’t break the puck out of our zone and they took advantage of that.”

The Flyers finally got on the board on a power play with just two seconds left in the period when Simmonds deflected a shot from Giroux into the Pittsburgh net past goalie Marc-Andre Fleury (24 saves).

That goal the Penguins cut the lead to 2-1 and that’s as close as the Flyers would get because it was back to the salt mines of their never-ending scoring drought. The Flyers managed work harder and had several chances to score, but just came up short

“We score a late goal with three or four seconds left, so we had momentum going in (to the third period),” Simmonds said. “We tried to build on it … But nothing ever came of it.”

On a night when the Flyers held the Penguins to 0-for-4 on the power play, they didn’t put anything together offensively.  When you don’t score, a good offensive team like Pittsburgh is going to put you away. Late in the third, a goal by Sydney Crosby and empty-net goal by Malkin sealed the Flyers fate while sending fans to the exits.

Flyers Do Everything But Score in Season-Opening Loss to Toronto

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By Chris Murray

For the Chris Murray Report and the Philadelphia Sunday Sun

Wayne Simmonds shot is stuffed by Toronto goalkeeper Jonathan Bernier. The Flyers had 32 shots, but scored just one goal in loss to the Maple Leafs. Photo by Webster Riddick.

Wayne Simmonds shot is stuffed by Toronto goalkeeper Jonathan Bernier. The Flyers had 32 shots, but scored just one goal in loss to the Maple Leafs. Photo by Webster Riddick.

PHILADELPHIA—There was an old coach who once said defense with no offense is like working all day and not making any money.

In their season-opener against the Toronto Maple Leafs, the Flyers worked their butts offs and did everything they could to put the puck into the net.  They outshot the Maple Leafs 32-25 and stayed on the attack for the most of the game. They had several chances to score, but just could not finish it off.

“When you’re up 30 shots on net, usually you get two or three goals,” said Flyers center Vincent LeCavalier. “We just couldn’t capitalize.”

But in the end, your hard work has to pay off with goals and the Flyers didn’t have enough of them as Toronto came away with a 3-1 win in front of a sellout crowd of 19,872 fans at the Wells Fargo Center.

“Offensively, that’s the best we’ve looked, but at the end of the day, we’ve got to put more goals in than one,” said Flyers head coach Peter Laviolette. “Like I said there were lots of pucks, they blocked a lot of shots. I thought we missed the net a lot tonight. It seemed like we had some zone time.

“Give Toronto credit. I thought that they played hard through the second and third and they made it difficult to find better chances or better scoring areas we had to work for those spots. They played pretty good defensively tonight.”

If anything else, the effort was there for the Flyers, but the execution was flawed as they were constantly attacking Toronto goaltender Jonathan Bernier with shots and did not score enough goals to win. The Maple Leafs goalie had 31 saves.

Even when the Flyers had the man-advantage on the Maple Leafs, the didn’t do much with it and were just one of six on the power-play. Claude Giroux said the Flyers inability to take advantage of those power-play opportunities were a boost in momentum for the Maple Leafs.

“When you kill a penalty, you get momentum,” Giroux said. “We had our chances and it’s frustrating, but we have to stay positive. It’s one game. We have 81 more.”

The Flyers dominated the first period and spent most of the first 20 minutes attacking Bernier. The Flyers broke through for what turned out to be their only goal of the game on the power play when Brayden Schenn took a pass from LeCavalier and shot it past Bernier to give the Flyers a 1-0 lead.

Toronto evened the game in the second period on a goal center Phil Kessell with a little over three minutes left.

Perhaps the biggest momentum killer for the Flyers and the biggest boost for the Maple Leafs was the missed penalty shot by right winger Wayne Simmonds, who got to go one-on-one with Bernier when he was tripped on a break away by Toronto’s Paul Ranger.

Bernier stuffed Simmonds shot and that was emblematic of the Flyers first evening of the 2013-2014 season.

“I missed it. It would have been the difference in the game, I think,” Simmonds said. “When you get to a penalty shot situation, obviously it’s one-on-one, he got the better of me that time.”

Toronto would go ahead for good early in the third period on a goal by center Dave Bolland. He would add a power-play goal late in the game to close out the scoring for the Maple Leafs.

Despite giving up the last two goals of the game, goaltender Steve Mason was solid in goal with 22 saves. Laviolette said he was satisfied with his performance.

“I thought Mason was good,” Laviolette said. “He made a couple of big saves in the second period. A couple of point-blank chances that they had.”

Offense Comes Up Big For Flyers in Win Over Carolina

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By Chris Murray

Ilya Bryzgalov had 42 saves for the Flyers in their win over the Carolina Hurricanes

Ilya Bryzgalov had 42 saves for the Flyers in their win over the Carolina Hurricanes

For the Chris Murray Report and the Philadelphia Sunday Sun

PHILADELPHIA—Flyers head coach Peter Laviolette would like to bottle his team scoring output against the Carolina Hurricanes for the rest of the season.  But knowing that his team has had problems on offense, he will take Saturday night’s effort as a start in the right direction.

After struggling to score more than two goals in their last three games, the Flyers offense finally awoke from its slumber and snapped a three-game losing streak with a 5-3 win over the Carolina Hurricanes in front of 19,591 fans at the Wells Fargo Center.

“I thought we came out hard and had a good start,” Laviolette said. “That first shift was really important and it set the tone.  We went down in the opposition’s end and we tried to pound it at the net and on the forecheck.”

In the first period, the Flyers scored three times which was more than the entirety of their last two losses to the New York Rangers and the Washington Capitals. What made this win even more special for the Flyers is that five different players scored goals.

“When you look at the past two seasons, we were successful because we always had a guy like (Claude) Giroux who was leading the charge or Mike Richards before, but we were getting offense from all the way down the line,” said Flyers center Danny Briere. “That’s probably what was missing a little bit this year.  To come here tonight with five different goals, five different goal scorers, I think it’s good for everybody’s confidence.”

The Flyers were perfect on their power-play chances, going three-for-three. Defenseman Kurtis Foster scored the game’s first goal in the first period when the Flyers had the man-advantage over the Hurricanes.

“We had a better presence at the net,” said Danny Briere, who scored on a power-play goal in the first period. “Even the first power-play that Foster scored it wasn’t pretty.  But it was the presence in front of the next on all three goals if you look we had one or sometimes two guys in the crease to block (the goalie’s) view or pounce on the rebound.”

Meanwhile, Flyers goalie Ilya Bryzgalov had a slow start, giving up a pair of first period goals that came primarily from a couple lapses in the Flyers defense. Hurricanes defenseman Joni Pitkanen got a clean shot ath the goal from Bryzgalov’s right while Flyers defenders were stacked to the opposite side.

The Hurricanes got a power-play goal from center Eric Staal who stole a Flyers pass and scored an unassisted goal to bring Carolina within 3-2.

From there Bryzgalov settled down and stopped 42 Hurricanes shots on goal. He gave up a late power-play goal in the third period. With the Flyers defense seemingly taking the foot off the gas pedal in the third while compiling time in the penalty box, Carolina got 15 shots and scored just once thanks Bryzgalov’s outstanding play between the pipes.

“The second period was good, but in the third period, they had a lot of shots and there was a lot of traffic coming from their power-play,” Laviolette said. “They really started to press the issue in the third period.

“They were checking forward with their defenseman. They were high risk, high reward and they ended up staying in the zone. They had lots of zone time on us. The second period was good for Bryzgalov, but he was unreal and really strong player for tonight.”

Notes-Washington Capitals defenseman John Erskine was suspended three games for an elbow to the head of Flyers rightwinger Wayne Simmonds.