BOX SCORE

SUNRISE, Fla. – In the entire 19-year history of the Florida franchise, only one Flyer had ever scored a hat trick against the Panthers – Eric Lindros. And his was just two years into the Panthers’ existence back in March of 1995.
 
You can now add Matt Read’s name next to The Big E.
 
The 26-year-old winger scored his first NHL hat trick Saturday night as the Flyers decimated the Panthers, 7-1, at BB&T Center.
 
“Pretty special to get your first hat trick knowing Eric Lindros was the other one, another special player who is [future] Hall of Famer,” Read said.
 
Read came into the game with just one assist through four games. That assist came against the Rangers earlier in the week when he got a promotion – via injury – to Claude Giroux’s top line.
 
“When you’re playing with Claude Giroux, he’s one of the best players in the NHL,” Read said. “[Wayne] Simmonds is one of the best battlers in the corner.
 
“Simmer and I had good chemistry last year and a little bit this year, and now with Claude, things are happening with us. Chemistry is clicking for us.”
 
Read was with Simmonds quite a bit his rookie year while the centerman on that line changed a lot.
 
But it might be tough for coach Peter Laviolette to remove Read from his current unit given after he scored two goals at even strength, adding another on the second power-play unit. Incidentally, that second power play unit included Danny Briere – in his season debut – and Mike Knuble, just signed on Friday.
 
“We weren’t scoring five-on-five or even generating chances that we wanted early, and Matt had a really strong first year for us,” Laviolette said, explaining his rationale for moving up Read.
 
“Talk about opportunities. That’s a prime example. Somebody goes down [Scott Hartnell] and somebody gets a chance and he looks good out there. He had a terrific game against the Rangers and this is more of the same.”
 
You could see Read was getting close with three pretty good chances against the Rangers on Thursday. On Saturday, he made good against the Panthers.
 
His hatter came on just three shots. According to HockeyReference.com, that's happened exactly 213 times in the last 25 years, since 1987-88.
 
Despite the rout, Flyer goalie Ilya Bryzgalov was very focused throughout the game with 30 saves.
 
“There were some opportunities, especially in the second, that came his way,” Laviolette said. “He really bailed us out. He’s been really sharp.”
 
Bryzgalov continued to look sharp in goal, making a tough post-to-post save on Tomas Flesichmann late in the second period during a Panthers power play before the game got out of hand.
 
Kevin Dineen’s Panthers were disinterested passengers in this one.
 
“You can go down the list of things we can do better,” veteran Ed Jovonovski bemoaned. “Just one thing that needs to be a constant for this team is hard work. And there wasn’t any.”
 
It goes without saying what Briere means to this club on the power play. It’s one reason why coming into Saturday, the Flyers were a horrific 2 of 18 (11.1 percent) with the man advantage.
 
Well, Briere made his presence immediately felt during an early 5-on-3 Flyers advantage that saw him initially pick up an assist on Kimmo Timonen’s hard shot from between the circles that appeared to hit someone before moving upward on goalie Jose Theodore.
 
Alas, Briere later lost the assist when the goal was correctly credited to Simmonds. Point is, Briere makes things happen.
 
“Nice to just get back and play a first game,” Briere said. “I didn’t know how things would go. I guess we could not have planned it much better.”
 
Read made it 2-0 at 7:12, with his first goal, hustling the puck up the left side, cutting to the middle, and using Simmonds as a screen.
 
The Flyers kept pressure on Theodore the entire period, outshooting the Panthers early, 8-3, but it changed in the final four minutes when Bryzgalov was under severe pressure and very calmly made one save after another.
 
He twice robbed Peter Mueller coming in on him from angles, and also handled a tough bouncing rebounding from Shawn Mattias in the slot.
 
You can’t understate the value of his saves, all of which paid off in Tye McGinn's first NHL goal scored with 1:09 remaining in the period.
 
“This is an unbelievable feeling,” McGinn said. “Words really can't explain it.  It just feels awesome.”
 
Some nice back checking by McGinn and linemate Ruslan Fedotenko created a turnover in neutral ice that saw Braydon Coburn center the puck into the slot for a redirect by McGinn, giving the Flyers an imposing 3-0 bulge at intermission.
 
“We put pressure on in the neutral zone,” McGinn said.  “Max [Talbot] was there and he carried the puck and made a nice play.
 
“The puck came around and Coby threw it on net and that's what we have to do. I was there and I just tried to do my best and chip it in. That’s what happened.”
 
Scott Clemmensen replaced Theodore, who faced just nine shots, to start the second period but got burned, too.
 
In the final 1:26, with both clubs skating 4-on-4, the Flyers scored twice, sandwiching a breakaway goal from Mueller, who otherwise kept getting robbed by Bryzgalov.
 
Read picked up his second goal at 18:34, then Luke Schenn fired one from the point with 13 ticks left and it trickled under Clemmensen, making it, 5-1.
 
Read’s final goal came on the power play in the opening minute of the third period on a slapper between the circles.
 
“Not many nights – seven goals?” Read asked. “We played all right defensively. We have some room for improvement in defensive zone.
 
“After the first four games and struggling to score, now finally getting a couple goals tonight, hopefully, it brings our confidence level up and we continue to create offense.”

With all these goals, maybe guys stop squeezing the stick. That’s 12 goals on the season. They had just five coming in.
 
“It was good to score goals – they’ve been hard to come by so far,” Laviolette said. “To put up a bunch of them was good.”