Flyers win ugly, end road trip with OT decision against Devils

Newark, NJ -- Brayden Schenn's tally at 1:50 of overtime lifted Philadelphia to a 3-2 victory over New Jersey at Prudential Center.

On the previous shift, a Dainius Zubrus chance fooled Ray Emery but clanged off the right post. That luck was extended to the following offensive rush, which saw Flyers defenseman Nicklas Grossmann fake a shot from the left point and then thread the needle to a wide-open Schenn on the right wing, and he buried the winner.

"We hung in there against a team that was very tough to play against," said Flyers head coach Craig Berube.

Claude Giroux and Scott Hartnell tallied in the third period for the Flyers, who finished off a wildly-successful 5-1-0 road trip and face Montreal at home on Wednesday.

Emery was solid in net, stopping 31 shots.

Adam Henrique and Michael Ryder lit the lamp for the Devils, who have lost five of their last seven. Martin Brodeur made 25 saves, but not the most crucial one.

Jaromir Jagr fed Henrique for a wraparound score at the left post with 57 seconds played in the contest. The assist gave the Czech native 1,723 points, tying him with former teammate and Hall of Famer Mario Lemieux for seventh on the all-time list.

After coming up short on four power plays, including three in a row, Giroux finally equalized for Philly on a wicked shot from the right circle on another advantage at 5:18 of the third.

"I mean yeah, anytime somebody takes something away from you, you want to prove them wrong,” said Giroux about being left off the Canadian Olympic roster. “But you know, I put that behind me.
I just have to continue to play my game out there. It’s a fun game, I’m not going to stress myself for that.”

Hartnell then put the Flyers on top just prior to the midway point of the period, sliding a shot through Brodeur's pads from the left wing.

Giroux was clipped by a Travis Zajac high stick with 1:43 to play, but the Devils tied the game on a tap-in from Ryder with Brodeur on the bench and 29.6 seconds to go.

"It was good to get the one point, but it’s frustrating because we need to start putting a streak together now and start getting two points every night,” Ryder said. “It’s definitely frustrating when you look at the standings every day. (This) was a big game and unfortunately we came up a little short.” 

Notes: Philly also went 5-1-0 on a holiday road trip from Dec. 29, 2007 to Jan. 10, 2008, against six teams in the Eastern Time Zone ... Schenn suffered a long gash on his midsection earlier in the contest, when Zubrus was upended and his skate slashed Schenn vertically ... Hartnell, who had an assist taken away on the Giroux goal nonetheless extended his point streak to a career-high eight games (4G, 5A) ... Schenn is only the third Philadelphia player to score an overtime goal on the road against the Devils in the regular season, following John LeClair (Apr. 22, 1995) and Simon Gagne (Feb. 10, 2010) ... New Jersey hosts Dallas on Thursday.