BOX SCORE
UNIONDALE, N.Y.Their start was dreadful.
They lost Jaromir Jagr. Again.
Their starting goalie looked average and got yanked.
Yet, the beauty of hockey is all it takes is someoneor someonesto make a difference.
Danny Briere scored twice late, while relief goalie Sergei Bobrovsky had a series of crucial saves in overtime as the Flyers stung the New York Islanders 4-3 Wednesday night at Nassau Coliseum.
Peter Laviolettes club officially hit the quarter-pole (21 games) for the Thanksgiving holiday with 27 points.
NHL
Briere scored his first goal on a rebound in the final 5:42 of regulation, then, won it at 2:34 of OT after Bobrovsky made two saves on Michael Grabner and one on Andrew MacDonald from point-blank range to round out a penalty kill.
It just happens, Im happy we won, said Bobrovsky, who relived Ilya Bryzgalov to open the second period.
Its not easy coming off the bench but its a game and you never know what can happen. Its not easy, but its my job.
Bobrovsky gave the Flyers a chance by settling things down in the second period after a brutal start saw the Flyers fall behind 3-1 with Bryzgalov yielding three goals on nine shots, two of which were bad.
We really put on the press to get back into it and there were a couple of point-blank chances that we gave up to press the other way and he bailed us out, Laviolette said of Bobrovskys heroics.
Couple times off faceoffs, couple times off breakaways, a couple two-on-ones, he had some big saves in there.
Jagr, the all-time leading Islander killer with 59 goals and 141 points in his previous 91 lifetime games against them, reinjured his groin in the second period and never returned. Jagr said he will sit the next two games.
The Isles led 3-2 going into the third period until Briere tied it on a rebound under the crossbar against goalie Rick DiPietro.
It was Brieres first goal in four games and gave the Flyers a much-needed jolt of life that carried into overtime, where they survived a Scott Hartnell hooking call thanks to Bobrovsky and outstanding PK work from Max Talbot and rookie Sean Couturier.
Brieres OT winner began with Bobrovskys last save on Grabner that resulted in an odd-man rush at even strength the other way.
That was a great penalty kill with Max and Seanthat gave us a chance to come back and get a few cracks at it, Briere said. When Hartsy got on the side boards, I wanted him to drive and drop it, which he did. I put it on net somehow and it found its way in.
Laviolette and his players talked about not having a repeat performance of Mondays lackadaisical showing against Carolina. For all of 18 seconds, it appeared as though that message was taken seriously by the Flyers.
Nope.
New York scored three times in a horrific opening period that ended with PA Parenteau elbowing Talbot in the head along the side boards as both teams headed to the dressing room with the Flyers trailing, 3-1.
The Flyers defensive coverage was poor. They allowed a three-on-one power-play goal off the rush. Bryzgalov again looked pedestrian on two goals.
Maybe it appeared to the Flyers things would go easily as Andrej Meszaros scored 18 seconds into the game.
Except Kyle Okposo, who came into play with zero goals, tied it on the Isles first shot at 37 seconds.
Okposo had two goals on two shots, scoring off a power-play rush soon after. Not much Bryz could have done on the second goal.
It became 3-1 when the Flyers allowed the Isles all kinds of skating and passing room at 18:29 with Grabner aiming one from the right circle just inside the far post on Bryzgalov.
Thats eight first-period goals given up over three games against the 13th-, 14th- and 15th-worst teams in the Eastern Conference.
Once again, it was a two-goal lead we gave the other team but we somehow climbed our way out of the mess again, Briere said. It was a long process, but we played defense better and cut their chances.
We know we can score goals. Instead of forcing the issue and giving up a bunch of chances the other way, we cut that off and slowly climbed back in.
During warmups, Hartnell was bouncing pucks off the side boards to check caroms. As a Flyer power play was winding down to open the second period, Jakub Voracek lined a puck off the back boards.
It took a weird carom directly to Hartnell, who scored on an unsuspecting DiPietro under the crossbar to make it a one-goal game.
We were coming up the neutral zone and G Claude Giroux made a good pass to Jake, Hartnell said. Jake came down and shot the puck.
It was kind of a lucky bounce off the boards right to me and I was able to put it up over DiPietro's glove.
Bobrovsky had a terrific glove stop on John Tavares near the periods end to keep it a one-goal deficit.
He stopped two breakaways back-to-back, Briere said. That could have been the turning point of the game.
It looked like nothing at the time. We came back after the second and were trailing by one. He did a marvelous job.
They both did to save Thanksgiving.
E-mail Tim Panaccio at tpanotch@comcast.net.