The Flyers had six days to stew over having the National Hockey League’s (NHL) worst record, with just two points and one win through eight games.
Coming off their longest layoff of the season, it might have been the Flyers’ fresh legs that allowed them to finally finish off the slumping New York Rangers in the third period.
Braydon Coburn broke a deadlock early in the final frame and Steve Mason made the lead stand up in a 2-1 win on Thursday night.
Photo: AFP
Matt Read scored a short-handed goal and added an assist, while Mason made 30 saves for Philadelphia (2-7), who ended a four-game losing streak. The Flyers are still off to their worst start through nine games.
“This is a big win against a big rival of ours,” Mason said. “Getting the two points here and hopefully being able to build off that is something we need to do and start getting ourselves out of this hole.”
In place of injured regular Henrik Lundqvist, New York’s Cam Talbot was solid in his NHL debut and made 25 saves.
Despite the rookie’s strong effort, the Rangers (2-6) lost for the fifth time in six games. New York have one game left on their season-starting, nine-game road trip before their home opener on Monday.
The Capitals beat the Edmonton Oilers 4-1, with Alex Ovechkin scoring his NHL-leading 10th goal and adding an assist for Washington.
Joel Ward, Jason Chimera and Nicklas Backstrom also scored for the Capitals, who have won four of five.
Ovechkin netted his 10th goal in 10 games with 1 minute, 47 seconds left in the first period. A faceoff deep in Oilers territory came back to the Washington captain, who put a quick wrist shot up high past goalie Devan Dubnyk.
In Newark, Mike Santorelli scored the only goal in the shootout to help Vancouver edge New Jersey as the Canucks beat the Devils 3-2.
David Krejci tipped in a shot with 0.8 seconds left in the third period as Boston beat San Jose 2-1, handing the Sharks their first regulation loss of the season.
Jarome Iginla scored his first goal with the Bruins (7-2), and Tuukka Rask made 38 saves.
The Lightning had a 6-5 win over the Blackhawks in overtime, with Martin St Louis scoring the winner at Tampa, and the Wild beat the Hurricanes 3-1 with Nino Niederreiter and Zach Parise scoring for Minnesota with the first two shots of the season against Carolina fill-in goalie Justin Peters.
Cam Ward was hurt just 4:07 into the game, an unspecified lower-body injury that forced the Hurricanes to send Peters in cold. He stopped 19 shots after settling in, but his rough start was costly.
At Montreal, Carey Price made 31 saves in the home team’s 4-1 victory over the Ducks.
In other games, the Predators beat the Jets 3-2 and the Stars had a 5-1 win over the Flames.
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