Bryzgalov, Couturier Lead Flyers Past Wild

Flyers tame Wild 5-1 behind 5 different goal scorers

Sean Couturier had a short-handed goal to lead a balanced scoring attack and the Flyers beat the Minnesota Wild 5-1 Tuesday night.

Kimmo Timonen, Scott Hartnell, Braydon Coburn and Jakub Voracek also had goals and Jaromir Jagr had two assists for the Flyers, who got points from 11 different players.

Darroll Powe scored against his former team for Minnesota's only goal.

Ilya Bryzgalov made 25 saves to earn the win, a day after coach Peter Laviolette reiterated he's the No. 1 goaltender.

Bryz is having the worst season of his nine-year career while backup Sergei Bobrovsky has far better stats.

But Bryzgalov signed a $51 million, nine-year contract in the offseason and will be given every opportunity to prove his worth heading into the playoffs.

"The whole team was satisfied with the way we played," Bryzgalov said. "It was a great team win. All four lines were rolling, playing physical and we were safe and sound in the defensive zone."

The Flyers are 5-2 since losing the Winter Classic to the New York Rangers.

The Wild are 1-5-1 in their past seven games and 2-10-4 since winning seven in a row from Nov. 28 to Dec. 10.

Timonen gave the Flyers a 1-0 lead on a power-play goal less than three minutes in. The All-Star defenseman's slap shot from just inside the blue line sailed past goaltender Josh Harding, who was screened by a teammate jostling with Wayne Simmonds in front of the net.

It stayed that way until midway through the second period when the teams scored three goals in a span of 2:20.

Couturier got things started for Philadelphia on a give-and-go with Matt Read during a two-on-one break. He nearly whiffed on his shot, but got enough of the puck for it to trickle into an open net.

Powe cut it to 2-1 just 71 seconds later when his slap shot from outside the left faceoff circle hit defenseman Andrej Meszaros' stick and skipped over Bryzgalov's glove.

But the Flyers answered 69 seconds later. Coburn's wrister from the blue line hit defenseman Nick Schultz and went in for a 3-1 lead.

Hartnell scored on a deflection to make it 4-1 a few minutes later. Hartnell has a team-high 20 goals.

Voracek extended the lead to 5-1 in the third.

Next up, the Flyers host the Islanders Thursday night.

Copyright AP - Associated Press
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