Riding the momentum of Friday night's dramatic comeback win in Anaheim on Friday, the Flyers erupted for four early goals last night against the Phoenix Coyotes and held on to win, 4-2. Some quick-hit notes and comments:
* For the second straight night, the Flyers moved the puck well on the power play, and got rewarded multiple times. This time around, Philly went 2-for-3 on the man advantage (Matt Read and Scott Hartnell).
* The Flyers top line of Claude Giroux, Hartnell and Jaromir Jagr was once again dominating, but this time around, they had help from other lines.
Read, who had quietly fallen into an offensive mini-slump with no points in the four previous games, broke out if it in a big way in the first period. He was alert and opportunistic in cashing in on the first goal of the game, and later added two assists.
It was also nice for the Flyers to get a goal from Wayne Simmonds, who ended a seven-game pointless drought by being in the right place at the right time near the net (a classic case of a team making its own to good luck) to collect a carom off the end boards and stuff home just his 2nd goal in the last 11 games.
Meanwhile, Giroux blasted a one-timer past Mike Smith off a perfect Kimmo Timonen feed from behind the net. Hartnell found a seam in the Phoenix PK box to take a pass from Danny Briere and fire it home. Both players were buzzing throughout the first and third periods.
Jagr (1A) was the least effective member of the trio against Phoenix, but it wasn't like he played poorly. Jagr simply appeared tired and heavy-legged in the second and third periods. That was not surprising at all because the team was playing back-to-back games, he had logged massive ice time with all the power plays on Friday and only had the benefit of a couple days of practice since suffering his initial groin pull in the first meeting with the Coyotes.
There were a lot of Flyers whose energy appeared to dip in the second period. The Coyotes really took it to the Flyers in the middle stanza -- especially in the hitting department -- and the team was fortunate to only lose one goal off its lead.
Philly did a much better job closing out the game in the third period. The Flyers tightened things up defensively and the Coyotes really never got a sniff at a potential comeback. Mikkel Boedker's late-game deflection goal came way too late to do anything other than make it a 4-2 final.
* Ilya Bryzgalov (36 saves) had a shaky game against Anaheim but was stellar against the Yotes. He tracked the puck a lot better, got squared to the shooters and in general appeared to be in full control.
* For the second straight night,the Flyers veteran defensemen collectively stepped up in the absence of Chris Pronger. Andrej Meszaros (21:35 played, 4 blocks) had his second straight outstanding game. Timonen followed up an All-Star worthy showing in Anaheim with nearly as good an effort, and both Braydon Coburn (24:17, 5 blocks, 0 giveaways, 2 takeways) and Matt Carle (24:56,3 shots, 2 blocks) also played well.
The large lead the Flyers built up enabled Peter Laviolette to rest Timonen (22:09) a little longer and assign a few extra shifts to Marc-Andre Bourdon (13:28, 2 shots, 2 hits). Kevin Marshall played 9:44.
* Meszaros, Brayden Schenn and Zac Rinaldo all absorbed heavy hits in the game but appeared to be OK afterwards. Meszaros got drilled by Raffi Torres in the defensive corner with 13 seconds left in the game. While it was not a dirty hit per se, it was the type of play (game outcome already decided, no preceding incident between the two players and the two teams finished their season series with each other) that showed a lack of respect. Max Talbot was the first in line to confront Torres.
Philly, which had five nights off before the match against the Ducks, will now have a three-night break before taking on the Sabres on Wednesday night in a nationally televised (Versus) game in Buffalo.
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