Wayne Simmonds' 1st career OT winner over Sharks helps Flyers salvage 5-game homestand

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Wayne Simmonds had already put a fancy shoulder move on Brent Burns for a terrific isolated shot on San Jose goalie Aaron Dell and was robbed by the glove hand.
 
Now here it was in overtime with Burns coming into the neutral zone with the puck on his stick, an All-Star defenseman headed for a possible Norris Trophy.
 
“I tried to read him,” Simmonds said. “He lost it at the start and I kind of inched up on him and luckily [the puck] went off my skate and it was off to the races.”
 
This time, however, Simmonds tucked the puck into the far corner of the net. San Jose challenged the play for goalie interference, but lost the review.

The Wells Fargo Center erupted as Simmonds' heroics capped off a 2-1 Flyers overtime victory over the Sharks. It was Simmonds' first career OT winner (see Instant Replay).
 
“I didn’t know who was near, I just went full speed to put the puck in the back of the net,” Simmonds said. “We needed those two points desperately. It was huge for us. We played a great game.”
 
Indeed, the Flyers did. The thing was, when Simmonds scored, it wasn’t excitement engulfing the Flyers' bench as much as it was relief.
 
With any luck at all, the Flyers could have finished this homestand with three wins instead of 2-2-1, as Michal Neuvirth, who started four the games, deserved to win last weekend’s 1-0 overtime loss to Los Angeles.
 
“I wasn’t that excited, I was just relieved,” Flyers captain Claude Giroux said. “Happy that we got it done at home. The fans deserved it.
 
“The whole game we worked our ass off and it paid off at the end. Relieved, happy and hope it’s going to get us going.”
 
Dave Hakstol’s crew heads to Calgary, Edmonton and Vancouver next week. The Flyers remain out of the playoff picture for now.
 
The common theme to this five-game homestand was the Flyers' outplaying the opposition most of the games without scoring. You can dominate all you want and play excellent defensively, but if you don’t score, you can't win (see 10 observations).
 
“This game had the same feel of a lot games over this last stretch here,” Hakstol said. “It’s real close, tight, hard-fought games. A game we stuck with right from the drop of the puck, stuck with all the way through.”

As was the case in last week's loss to the Kings, it was scoreless going into the third period. Dell, the Sharks' backup goaltender, had a personal-best shutout streak of six periods on the line before Ivan Provorov took a rebound off the post from Andrew MacDonald and shot it back on net for a 1-0 lead at 6:22.
 
Provorov’s goal was the Flyers first 5-on-5 goal in 245 minutes and 25 seconds.
 
“Mac’s shot hit the post and bounced right back to me," Provorov said, "and I saw their guy was trying to get into the lane, so I hesitated a second, then shot it."
 
Some thought MacDonald's shot might have gone in.
 
“I had a good angle on it and was going for the post,” MacDonald said. “At first, I thought it might have gone post and in but it was rebound out. Boys were joking it was a great pass to Provy. Obviously, not intentional. He made a great play to pick up the rebound.”
 
Three minutes later, Patrick Marleau tied it on the power play but again, the Flyers kept playing tight defense on a bigger, heavier team and forced the game into overtime.
 
The only controversy in the win came early in the game, when a San Jose power-play goal was overturned.
 
Hakstol challenged that Kevin Labanc interfered with Neuvirth. It was obvious, too, as Labanc swung his stick right into the Flyers' netminder.
 
“He hit me and the right call by Hak,” Neuvirth said, adding he was also surprised it was overturned since that doesn’t happen often. “There’s contact on some goals and they’re still [good]. It’s 50-50 and today it was big.”
 
Flyers video guru Adam Patterson saw it on video.
 
“Well, you know what? There’s always gray area to the challenges so great job by Adam Patterson,” Hakstol said. “All of the credit for that one goes straight to him.
 
“He radioed us … there’s always a gray area, but I think it’s the right call. Obviously, or else we wouldn’t have challenged it.”
 
The save of that first period went to Dell on Simmonds’ rising wrister off an incredible shoulder fake around Burns. Dell had shut the Flyers out, 2-0, in December.
 
The Flyers outshot the Sharks, 35-24. They’ve done that a lot lately, without scoring goals, but they stuck with it. Simmonds had five shots and Jakub Voracek seven in this game.
 
“Dell played great,” Simmonds said. “He made some huge saves for them. He almost got that last one, too. He stuck with it, but luckily it went in the net and we got the two points, that’s all that matters.”
 
“You just have to stick with it. I think the second period for both teams was not a lot of shots or defensively oriented. It was probably like seven or four, I don’t have the paper, but there wasn’t too much going on.
 
“You have to wait for their mistakes and capitalize on our opportunity. I thought we did a good job tonight.”
 
The Flyers deserved to win this game. They deserved to win last Saturday, too, against the Kings but lost.
 
There’s very little margin between winning and losing right now, as general manager Ron Hextall is fond of reminding people.
 
“It’s really hard to stand up here and say our team’s playing pretty good hockey when the results aren’t coming,” Hakstol said.
 
“But our team’s been playing pretty good hockey. We had to win a tight, close one today, 2-1 in overtime. Maybe that’s the way it’s going to be.” 

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