Flyers erupt in first period to top Coyotes

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GLENDALE, Ariz.This is how it looked: Claude Giroux had his right arm cocked high, an obvious signal to Kimmo Timonen he was ready for the puck.

Timonen swung around the Coyotes net, spied that arm that could be seen everywhere in the desert, and gave him the puck.

It was kind of a hard shot for the goalie to stop when the player is behind the net and kind of shoots it in front and Kimmo did a great play there, Giroux said.

Girouxs whistling one-timer past goalie Mike Smith made it 3-0. And there was still almost four minutes left in the period at Jobing.com Arena.

Just enough time for Scott Hartnell to add his 11th goal to go along with Girouxs 15th as the Flyers sandblasted the Coyotes, 4-2, to finish 2-0 on this mini Western trip.

December is a critical month for Peter Laviolettes club with 13 games, 10 of which are on the road. So far, two wins in two games.

Jumping in after some days off, you never know what youre going to get but we played really hard Friday and came out strong tonight and jumped on a lead and were able to walk away with four points, Laviolette said. Thats a good trip.

Ilya Bryzgalov, who had been royally ripped by his Coyotes teammates before last months game in Philly, picked up his 10th victory.

The Russian goalie also made his first back-to-back starts, something he did seven times last season as a Coyote.

Coach decided to let me in and I cant deny it, Bryzgalov said. But I cant go and say, I want to play the next couple games. Hes the boss. He makes the decisions.

Meanwhile, Giroux temporarily tied Torontos Phil Kessel for the NHL scoring lead with 32 points.

Its a great honor but its early in the season and I just got to keep it going, Giroux said.

When you play with two good players you are going to get the puck a lot in the slot. Its important that you are ready. Jags Jaromi Jagr talked to me a lot about being in the slot and make sure to shoot hard and pick your spots. Tonight I got pretty lucky to hit that corner.

After scoring three power-play goals the night before in Anaheim, the Flyers stunned Phoenix for two in the opening period as Matt Read picked up his first point in four games with a drive from the circle at 4:23.

You can see what a difference it makes to the Flyers when they score some power-play goals.

The power play was clicking, Hartnell said. Its a big part of NHL hockey these days, the special teams. When youre penalty kill is stopping their top units from scoring and our top guys are scoring on the power play, thats a deadly combination.

Read had three points that period. Yet the big news was that the rookie scored his 10th goal.

Did he really think hed have 10 goals this early?

Absolutely not, Read said. It is still so surreal every day. I'm just trying to enjoy
myself and make the best of every shift.

Slumping winger Wayne Simmonds made it 2-0 two minutes later, batting a Danny Briere shot out of the air for his first goal in eight games, causing Coyotes coach Dave Tippett to burn his timeout at 6:01.

It was just the second time in seven games in which the Flyers didnt trail after the opening period. They had been outscored 11-2 over their previous six games.

Really, it was hard to tell which team was playing consecutive games and had traveled. Yet the energy the Flyers had that opening period dissipated as the game moved on.

We learned from our past few games where we didnt have great starts. We were digging ourselves one and two and three-goal deficits at start of games and that was the big emphasishave a better start, Hartnell said.

Tippett switched to goalie Jason LaBarbera to start the second period while Ray Whitney broke up Bryzs shutout attempt with his 350th career goal at 7:15.

We played really good and they had some chances in the beginning, Bryzgalov said. When we score goalsI just try to enjoy the game.

The Flyers were less focused that period and rather sloppy with the puck, which may be why Laviolette called his timeout with 9:03 after several shifts in succession where Phoenix held shooting target practice on Bryzgalov.

He was really sharp, Laviolette said. There wasnt a lot for him in the first period, but the second and third once the score was in our favor, we got a little sloppy and he had to make some big saves.

Bryzgalov finished with 36 saves, thanks to 25 shots over the final two periods.

I think our team has played hard the last four or five games but the first periods havent gone the way we wanted to go, Laviolette said.

Weve been resilient, weve come back and fought back and gotten wins where weve been behind. But we talked about starts and being ready to play.

They were.E-mail Tim Panaccio at tpanotch@comcast.net

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