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The Carolina Hurricanes jumped out to a lead and held onto it as they defeated the Philadelphia Flyers, 4-2 at the Wells Fargo Center, Monday night. It was the first win for the Canes in the "City of Brotherly Love" since November 28, 2008.
The team started the scoring off at 13:42 into the opening period when Chad LaRose made a nice pass across the crease to an open Alexei Ponikarovsky, who made no mistake. "Poni's" goal was a powerplay tally, the first of two in the game for Carolina.
The Canes would score again late in the period when Jeff Skinner made an all world spin move to break himself into the clear. Ilya Bryzgalov made the initial stop, but Skinner had the skill to knock the rebound in as he glided past the net. The goal came with just 15 clicks left in the first.
The Flyers would start putting more consistent and intense pressure on in the second period. James van Riemsdyk scored an unassisted goal making it 2-1, just 1:34 into the second. But the Canes were able to kill off multiple penalties during the period until they would strike again.
Later in the period, Tomas Kaberle made a pretty play, skating the puck down low as he found LaRose open in the slot. "Rosie" wristed a nice shot in the net to make it 3-1.
The Flyers would score again midway through the third when rookie Matt Read got open. But Ponikarovsky would score another powerplay tally for insurance and Cam Ward would do the rest.
Ward made several excellent saves in this one to earn the win and the Canes put in another overall team effort to pick up a tough victory against the top team in the East.
Game Notes:
- The Canes had 31 shots on goal to 32 for the Flyers. According to our intern, Carolina led in scoring chances 21-20. Skinner had a team high six shots on goal while Brandon Sutter and LaRose had five each.
- Once again, Justin Faulk and Jay Harrison led the way with time on ice, both logging in at over 24 minutes. The next closest blueliner was Gleason at 21:07. Harrison had a team high five blocked shots and three hits. Faulk also had three hits to go with one block.
- Once again the Hurricanes did well in the faceoff circle and won 59% of the game's draws. (Staal 60%, Sutter 68%, Jokinen 46%, Brent 60%).
- The team was credited with 36 hits, a tremendous effort for the second game of a back-to-back. Patrick Dwyer had a team high six while Bryan Allen chipped in with four.
- The fourth line did not see much action again. Anthony Stewart had a team low 4:36.
- LaRose and Poni had three points each.
- The Canes are now 8-0-0 when leading after two periods.
- They went 2-4 on the PP while the Flyers were 1-4.
post game interviews: