PHILADELPHIA, Pa. - Wayne Simmonds scored his 12th goal of the season as the Philadelphia Flyers defeat the New Jersey Devils 4-1 Thursday night.
Mark Streit and captain Claude Giroux exchanged passes in the attacking zone before Streit fired a long-ranger on goal.
The shot was high and beaten to the ice by Simmonds, who fired his own deflection clean past the Devils net-minder for the go-ahead strike.
"You get that insurance goal, you don't want to go down right to the last two minutes only up one goal there," Simmonds said. "We were getting shots in on the power play and I thought it was only a matter of time before we put one in."
The goal came with an extra man to give the Flyers a 1-for-5 mark on the power-play, where Philly ranks 4th-best in hockey.
Jakub Voracek added an empty-netter at 17:30 when Cory Schneider was pulled to give Jersey the extra man, and the 25-year-old Czech notched his 10th goal and 25th point on the year, the latter mark a team-best.
"We kept putting pressure on their defense in the third up a goal, and we pulled it out," Sean Couturier said afterwards. His goal and assist came in the opening period.
The victory gives Philadelphia (10-13-5) points in four straight games as they open a four-game homestand, that after a meager 1-3-1 road trip.
And gives New Jersey their fifth-straight losing decision, though they came within 2-1 in the second period when Martin Havlat snuck past Ray Emery for his 3rd on the season with an extra man.
Scott Gomez and Jaromir Jagr assisted after exchanging passes from inside the circle, and Havlat took a pass on the tape, flicking it past Emery's left pad.
With that point, Gomez moved into 4th place all-time among Devils with 337 assists.
Emery only faced 18 shots against him for the Flyers to Cory Schneider' 35 for the Devils, stopping 32 before being pulled in the game's final twenty seconds.
Philadelphia raced out to a 2-0 lead after the first period as Sean Couturier and Matt Read exchanged roles on each other's goals.
Their first came in the least likely of places, their 29th-ranked penalty kill.
Couturier notched the Flyers' first shorthanded goal on the season when he and Matt Read skated a sudden 2-on-1 against Schneider.
Read had brought the puck into the Devils zone before darting what would be an assist to Couturier in the crease, who flicked a wrister clean to the goalie's right side.
The goal was the center's 6th strike this year for Broad Street.
"We wanted to get off to a good start and maintain that for sixty minutes," Couturier said.
He and Matt Read switched places on the Flyers' second goal as Couturier assisted on what became Read's third in Philly's ledger this season.
Couturier was handling the puck after some passing behind the Jersey net, finding Read sneaking towards the crease, finding a hole to the Schneider's left side at 13:37.
"Just keep doing the little things right and eventually something's going to go your way," Read said after the game. "It's good to get one but you have to work hard every night and do the little things right and do the little things to help your team win."
Scott Laughton gave the Flyers two chances late, on a pass to Wayne Simmonds in the crease that found Schneider's pad, and a long give to Brayden Schenn who fired from near the blue line that was caught just in time.
"We wanna stay in the playoffs," Couturier said, "and to stay in the right place, we gotta put some wins on the board."
Their next chance comes when they welcome the Carolina Hurricanes to South Philadelphia Saturday.
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