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Wrap: Flyers Beat Sens, 5-3 |
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WRAP: FLYERS BEAT SENS, 5-3
The Philadelphia Flyers pulled away from the Ottawa Senators and went on to stake down a 5-3 win at the Canadian Tire Centre on Saturday afternoon. With the win, the Flyers have posted points in 11 straight games (9-0-2) and have won five in a row.
Paired with a 6-5 regulation loss by the Pittsburgh Penguins to the Florida Panthers on Saturday evening, the Flyers moved into second place in the Metropolitan Division, at least temporarily. Both the Flyers and Penguins have 76 points and Pittsburgh holds the end-of-season ROW tiebreaker advantage (34-32) but the Penguins have played one more game than the Flyers to date. The Flyers are one point behind the Metropolitan Division leading Washington Capitals and the two teams are tied with 32 ROW apiece. The Caps rebounded from a late-game collapse against Florida on Thursday with a convincing 5-1 victory on Saturday over the Buffalo Sabres.
On Saturday in Ottawa, the Flyers got goals from Ivan Provorov (11th), Robert Hägg (2nd), Claude Giroux (22nd), Nolan Patrick (9th) and Brandon Manning (6th). Giroux (52nd assist of the season), Shayne Gostisbehere (40th), Manning (8th and 9th), Jakub Voracek (NHL leading 56th) and Radko Gudas (8th) provided assists. Petr Mrazek stopped 25 of 28 shots to get the win in goal.
Ottawa's Mike Hoffman (17th) scored a mid first period power play goal to cut an early Flyers 2-1 lead down to a single goal. A would-be tying goal for the Senators at 12:16 of the second period was overturned upon challenge by the Flyers; reviews showed that Zack Smith was offside on the play leading up to the goal. After the Flyers subsequently blew the game open in the third period to turn a narrow 2-1 lead into a 5-1 blowout, the Sens got two meaningless late goals by Ryan Dzingel (17th) and Matt Duchene (17th) to narrow their final margin of defeat from four goals to two. Craig Anderson stopped 34 of 39 shots in a losing cause.
The Flyers went 0-for-2 on the power play and 2-for-3 on the penalty kill.
Feeling better after nursing a sore foot from a shot he blocked in Tuesday's game against Columbus, Travis Konecny returned to the Flyers' lineup after a one-game absence. He did record a point but had three shots on goal.
Meanwhile, although rookie left wing Oskar Lindblom is still looking for his first NHL point after three games, the Swede has been excellent on the walls and without the puck. He has found quick chemistry with Patrick and Voracek, and his work on the sequence leading up to the Patrick goal was vital in why the rest of the play unfolded as it did.
A trade-deadline centered blog will follow on Monday.
Philadelphia Flyers Blogger •NHL.com • 
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