Flyers skirt disaster, get by Maple Leafs

by Bob Herpen
Phanatic Hockey Editor

Brian Boucher showed flashes of badly-needed veteran flair in the crease on Thursday night, stopping 27-of-29 shots as Philadelphia held on to top Toronto, 3-2, at Air Canada Centre.

The 34-year-old improved to 16-8-2 on the year and posted his first win since February 20 as the Eastern Conference leaders upped their lead to four points over idle Pittsburgh in the Atlantic Division and four over Southeast-leading Washington in the race for the best record in the East.

Andrej Meszaros, Darroll Powe and Claude Giroux supplied the offense for the Flyers, who have won two in a row after dropping four straight.

Mikhail Grabovski and former Flyer Joffrey Lupul tallied for the Maple Leafs, losers of three in a row and five of seven. James Reimer stopped 30 shots in defeat.

Philly got a huge break less than four minutes in, when Leafs defenseman Mike Komisarek was given a major for boarding and game misconduct for a hit against Flyers forward Dan Carcillo.The hit did not appear to warrant such a penalty, as it appeared Carcillo simply lost balance upon contact.

Only 70 seconds into the advantage, Meszaros one-timed a Giroux pass home for a 1-0 game. Jeff Carter was robbed of another score when an early whistle blew play dead, then Reimer came up with three more quality stops on the advantage to keep it a one-goal game.

Powe made it 2-0 for Philadelphia at 9:36 of the second period, when his centering pass from behind the goal line somehow trickled through Reimer's pads.

Toronto halved its deficit at 11:23 on a power play, when Dion Phaneuf's blast from the point redirected off Grabovski's face shield and sailed by Boucher.

Giroux restored the two-goal edge in the slot, when he gathered in a James van Riemsdyk feed and scored with 5:20 to play in the second.

Danny Briere's bid to provide a three-goal edge hit the crossbar on a rush with 7 1/2 minutes played in the third period, and it came back to bite the visitors when Lupul converted a Mike Brown pass at 7:56 to make it a 3-2 game.

Reimer was sent off for an extra attacker with 1:12 left, but the visitors controlled play until the buzzer.

Notes: Philadelphia won three of four over the Maple Leafs this season, including both games in Toronto...Flyers defenseman Chris Pronger sat out with a recurrence of the hand injury he suffered two weeks ago, but Nick Boynton made his Philadelphia debut in Pronger's absence...The Eastern Conference leaders improved to 33-1-3 this year when leading after two periods...Philly forward Kris Versteeg made his return to Toronto for the first time since the Leafs dealt him to the Flyers, tallying one shot in almost 17 minutes of ice time.