DENVER -- It’s not very often that Flyers goalie Steve Mason could come out of a game knowing the guy at the other end stole two points for his club.
But that’s exactly the feeling you had Thursday night at Pepsi Center watching Colorado’s Semyon Varlamov stone the Flyers at every chance with 29 saves.
“Varlamov moves extremely well,” Mason said after a 2-1 loss, the first for the Flyers on this five-game western road trip (see game recap).
“Tonight I thought he was very sharp. He made some big saves. He did what he needed to do to get the two points.”
It was an especially tough loss for Mason, who faced 31 shots, many of them coming in flurries in the second and third periods. He deserved a better fate.
The game-winner from Ryan O’Reilly came at 9:17 of the second period when the shot appeared to hit Mason on the shoulder. Not so.
“It hit me on the right pad, the top of the pad bent down and the puck went up and over [my shoulder],” Mason explained. “A pretty crappy break.”
Mason was simply under siege in the third period, yet he kept the Flyers in the game much like he did earlier in the trip at Vancouver.
“I expected that,” Mason said. “I told myself going into the third to keep it at two [goals] and give the boys a chance. After that, we had a couple chances but Varlamov made a couple saves. The puck bounced the wrong way for us.”