PHILADELPHIA, PA. – The Carolina Hurricanes had an extra day to wait, but in the end they earned an important 3-2 win over the Philadelphia Flyers at Wells Fargo Center on Wednesday.
After the two teams’ had their originally schedule game on Tuesday postponed due to inclement weather, their third meeting 24 hours later was another closely contested, one-goal affair.
Hurricanes forward Jiri Tlusty scored the eventual game-winning goal at the 13:50 mark of the third period to move Carolina (21-19-9, 51 pts) two points closer to Philadelphia (25-20-6, 56 pts) in the Metropolitan Division standings with two games in hand.
Alexander Semin scored his 10th goal of the season and fourth in his last three games to open the game’s scoring to put the Hurricanes ahead 1-0 at 11:57 of the first period.
Nathan Gerbe extended the lead to 2-0 in the second period after he turned the puck over at the Flyers blue line and went in uncontested to score an impressive highlight-reel goal as he dragged the puck behind him and threaded his stick back between his legs to flip the puck over goalie Steve Mason’s shoulder.
“Fortunate that it went in,” Gerbe said afterwards.
“It’s something I try in practice. I just always try to work on skills and try different things, and that led into tonight. I had the speed and the gap to do it and fortunately it went in.”
While Mason kept Philadelphia in the game in making 29 saves, Hurricanes goaltender Anton Khudobin did the same in finishing with 22 stops to earn the win.
Philadelphia’s Claude Giroux beat Khudobin with 35 seconds left in the period and narrowed the score by one before both teams proceeded to their dressing rooms for the intermission break.
With Carolina leading 2-1, the Flyers managed to beat Khudobin again during a scramble for the puck on a power play sequence as Scott Hartnell put away a rebound opportunity that tied the score 2-2 just three minutes into the third period.
As the Hurricanes continued to press Philadelphia in its zone as it had for a majority of the game, defenseman Andrej Sekera’s point shot bounced of Mason’s pad as the keeper made the initial save, but Tlusty was right on the edge of the crease and tucked the puck high into the net to put Carolina ahead for good.
“We stuck with the program,” Tlusty said.
“That was the key. We kept pushing their D and that was our game plan. We wanted to play a 200-foot game and that’s what we did in the third and you know what, they came back, but we stuck with the plan and we did all the good things out there.”