BOX SCORE
An early-season attention grabber for Beast of the East turned into a stunning, one-sided affair Thursday night.
The Washington Capitals will continue to reign over the Eastern Conference.
Bruce Boudreaus club deserves the accolade after a humbling 5-2 blowout victory over the Flyers at Wells Fargo Center. It was the Flyers' first loss in regulation.
Not exactly the way rookie Brayden Schenn (minus-3) envisioned his Flyer debut or how Kimmo Timonen would like to remember his 900th career game, either.
Given the advance billing for this onethe surging and surprising Flyers against the undefeated Capsthe final result was a shocking come-back-down-to-earth loss for Peter Laviolettes club.
There were four deflected goals, goalie Ilya Bryzgalov noted, but Flyer captain Chris Pronger harped on turnovers and penalties (six) as being just as decisive, especially at the end of the first period when the Caps stunned the Flyers for two goals.
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Theyre part of the game, Pronger said of deflections. We just as easily could have had a deflection, too. I think at the end of the day you look at the game. Turnovers and penalties killed us.
They ruin the flow of the game. They ruin the bench and at some point they were going to come back and get us, and it did tonight
The game lacked for pizzazz for 40 minutes, even though the Flyers owned most of those minutes.
The second period we played hard, a lot of offensive zone time, but I think we can still do a better job getting to the net, Laviolette said. Theres lots of shots, but we need to get in there and muck it up a bit more in front of the goaltender.
Washington led 2-1 to start the third, then iced it with two quick goals, beginning with a pop fly from the point by defenseman Roman Hamrlik that deflected off a Flyer stick.
The Caps then made a mockery of the game with a power-play goal from Alex Ovechkin, who doubled his season goal total (one), scoring twice in this game.
Ovies one-timer in the slot went off a Flyer, making it 4-1 at 3:54.
One of those nights of where is the puck as it hits one of our players or their players and goes right into the net, Bryzgalov said.
That was followed with another deflected goal, this one, from Joe Ward.
I think an accurate statement is while there were four redirects, three went off of our sticks, Laviolette added.
Not since the Boston playoff series last spring have the Flyers been out of game with a full 16 minutes to play.
We lost our composure in the third period for three, four or five minutes maybe, Danny Briere said. They kind of took controlOne thing we need to improve is when we have a bad play or bad shift and they score a goal, we have to come back with a better shift than we did tonight.
The Bryz caught flack from the fans, as well. They gave him derisive cheers for making a stop soon after Wards marker. Did they not see the deflections?
For the most part, it was plodding, penalty-filled hockey at the start of the game.
Maybe it had something to do with Laviolette changing up three of lines for an opponent, which is very unlike Laviolette.
Yet, the penalty parade and lack of rolling lines with stale players on the bench continues to taunt the Flyers.
The Flyers survived an early 4-on-3 Caps power play. Then, Braydon Coburn went to the box for a four-minute high-sticking call, but the Flyers got lucky on a gift interference call to Ovechkin.
At 4-on-4, Caps winger Alexander Semin was stripped of the puck in his end by Wayne Simmonds. The swipe sent the puck into neutral ice where Claude Giroux outraced everyone, then did a double move to fake out goalie Tomas Vokoun for his fifth goal of the season at 14:25.
Thats also the third time this season that Giroux has scored the first goal of the game.
Four minutes later, however, the Caps tied the game when Scott Hartnell (minus-3) turned the puck over and Mathieu Perreault redirected it.
A minus-3 is pretty frustrating, but a lot of those goals were a backdoor tip. One went off our stick and I had a bad turnover that first period, Hartnell said. You eliminate my turnover and its a couple bad breaks.
It got worse when Andrej Meszaros failed to control a puck behind his net, losing it to Nick Backstrom, who quickly fed it across the crease. Ovechkin buried it with 11.8 seconds left as the crowd booed.
On the bench, you could see how unhappy Laviolette was losing a lead, then falling behind in the final 1:20.
The two first goals give you a little breath and you feel good about how you play at the end of the period, Ovechkin said.
The Flyers had a tough sequence of shots in the second period that Vokoun (40 saves) either stopped or had blocked as no less than four players all had opportunities to tie the game.
One thing that stood out in this game was how little time and space Jaromir Jagr had on the ice.
Unlike the previous five opponents, every time Jagr had the puck on his stick he was swarmed by at least one player. He had precious little time to think about what he might attempt, let alone actually do it.
Vokoun had several outstanding saves that period, including one on Briere, who again had two stick penalties which are piling up.
I had one I would consider and the other I wouldnt consider a penalty, Briere said, adding that his attempt to a lift a stick and clipped a player was an obvious foul. Honestly, I dont think the penalties killed us. We couldnt score.
Laviolette didnt entirely agree.
Again, the penalties, they come in waves on us right now and Ive already told you about the flow of the bench and everything else, Laviolette said.
E-mail Tim Panaccio at tpanotch@comcast.net.