Stars Lose To Flyers
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PHILADELPHIA — Early goals and excellent goaltending helped the Philadelphia Flyers stay hot.
Right winger Wayne Simmonds scored two goals, goaltender Steve Mason made 33 saves and the Flyers beat the Dallas Stars 4-2 on Thursday night for their fourth straight win.
Defenseman Mark Streit and left winger Michael Raffl also scored goals for Philadelphia (37-25-7). The Flyers are 7-1-1 in March and have a three-point lead over the New York Rangers for fourth place in the Eastern Conference.
“Mase made a couple unbelievable saves and kept us in the game, and that’s key,” Streit said. “Everything comes together. We’re good defensively and upfront they’re playing well, and then we had the bounces so we were happy about it.”
Flyers coach Craig Berube was not too excited with the performance.
“They know it wasn’t good enough. But we won,” he said.
Left winger Jamie Benn scored two goals for Dallas, which lost its fourth
straight game. The Stars (32-26-11) entered two points behind Phoenix for the last playoff spot in the West.
“I think we can take a lot of good things out of this game,” Benn said. “We would probably prefer a better start, obviously. I thought we fought pretty hard in the second and third.”
Streit and Simmonds scored 2:58 apart midway through the first period to give the Flyers a 2-0 lead. Center Claude Giroux set up Streit’s goal by winning the face-off draw. His pass went back to Streit, who ripped a one-timer past goaltender Tim Thomas for his ninth goal. It was also the 30th scored this season by Philadelphia’s defensemen.
Simmonds then scored on a power play. His shot hit one post, bounced off Thomas’ foot, bounced off the other post and went in.
It stayed that way for about 20 minutes.
The Flyers’ strong special teams unit killed off 31 seconds of a two-man disadvantage as Mason stoned right winger Alex Chiasson and Benn, earning a standing ovation from fans. But right after the Flyers got one man back, Benn slipped one past Mason to cut the deficit to 2-1 in the second period.
Benn’s goal was the first power-play goal allowed by Philadelphia in the last 20 chances.
“Unbelievable. He played great,” Flyers defenseman Braydon Coburn said of Mason. “He was a rock for us back there tonight. He’s been doing that a lot lately so it was good.”
Simmonds extended the lead to 3-1 on his 23rd goal with 6:39 left in the third period on a wrist shot off a pretty pass by center Vincent Lecavalier.
But Benn got it right back 30 seconds later, scoring his 29th goal on a rebound off a weird hop off the boards.
Raffl gave the Flyers the insurance goal they needed when he scored on a breakaway off a terrific pass by center Sean Couturier. Raffl made a nifty forehand-backhand move to beat Thomas.
“I think Tim would like a couple back,” Stars coach Lindy Ruff said of Thomas’ performance. “There was a couple tough ones in there he knows he’d take back in a heartbeat.”
Thomas, the two-time Vezina Trophy winner acquired from Florida earlier this month, sounded like a guy who knew he may not get many more chances to start.
“Of course it’s tough, but at the same time we played a lot better tonight,” he said. “We’re going to put it all together here. I have confidence in Kari (Lehtonen) when he plays that he’s going to get the job done, and if I get the chance again I’m going to win.”
