As they have so many times this season, the Philadelphia Flyers came from behind to beat the Buffalo Sabres 2-1 at Wells Fargo Center. Tonight’s win ties this Flyers squad for the most wins in a season since 1985. With the Penguins win in New York tonight, the Flyers are now locked in as a #5 seed in the NHL playoffs and will face those Penguins in round one.
Back to tonight’s game… Buffalo struck first when former Flyer Ville Leino scored just his 8th goal of the season to make 1-0. They would hold that lead until the third period when Marc-Andre Bourdon would net his 4th of the season to even the score at 1. Claude Giroux added his 65th assist of the season -- second only to Vancouver Canucks setup specialist Henrik Sedin -- with a secondary helper on that goal.
With under five minutes left the game winner would come from rookie Matt Read, who beat Ryan Miller on his second breakaway attempt of the game. The first time around, Read tried to deke around Miller, but the Sabres goalie poke checked the puck away. The last time, Read clearly had that in mind as he opted to skate across goal and shoot, beating Miller low. It was Read’s 24th goal of the season, which leads all NHL rookies.
Ilya Bryzgalov also appears to be back to form as he made 25 saves on 26 shots.
The Flyers wrap up their regular season Saturday against Pittsburgh in a game that will mean absolutely nothing in the standings, but could get interesting given the events of their last meeting and the fact that they’ll be playing each other in the first round. It should be interesting to see how much the stars on each team actually play in that one.