Just Like 2011, Flyers Can Move Into 1st-place Tie by Winning 33rd Game in Dallas

DALLAS — When a team is on a tear the way the Flyers are right now with the NHL’s longest winning streak, 10 games, you look for things that suggest good fortune to come.
 
Tomorrow afternoon, the Flyers will meet the Stars here in Game No. 33 with a chance to tie the Penguins and Rangers for the Metro Division lead.
 
The Flyers have had recent difficulty winning in Dallas — two losses in three years — but if you go back to 2011 under Peter Laviolette, you find this ditty: The Flyers came into Dallas for Game No. 33 that season.
 
They won that night, 4-1, to grab the Atlantic Division lead, as well as the No. 1 overall seed in the Eastern Conference as Claude Giroux returned to the lineup after missing four games with a concussion and had a four-point effort (goal, three assists).
 
Maybe that spells continued good fortune for the Flyers on Saturday.
 
“Yeah, I remember that,” said Giroux on Friday at Dr. Pepper StarCenter. “Hopefully it happens again.”
 
Wayne Simmonds remembers the Dallas game for a different reason. Eleven days earlier, he accidentally took the Flyers' star player out of the game against Tampa Bay with an accidental head shot.
 
“Yep, G came back off the concussion after I kneed him in the head,” Simmonds laughed. “He played great that game against Dallas. He picked up right where he left off.
 
“He was having a great season that year. He put up a four-spot after I kneed him, which was a complete accident. That’s the way G is. He can explode for four or five points any night.”
 
Jakub Voracek had two four-point games during this current win streak. One against Edmonton and the other ... Dallas. Voracek had forgotten about Giroux’s four-pointer here in Texas a few years earlier.
 
“It'd be nice if he gets four points [tomorrow] because that means I’m going to get some points, too,” Voracek said. “He gets four points, I’m sure we win. I remember that [previous] game was right before the Winter Classic.”
 
Some of the Flyers' losses in Dallas have been blowouts.
 
Back in December 2013, Zac Rinaldo came onto the ice here for his first shift and racked up 17 minutes in penalties by attacking Antoine Roussel. The Flyers got thumped, 5-1.
 
“It was so funny,” recalled Simmonds. “I remember that game. Zac was shaking before the game. He had it in his mind the whole time that he was going to go out and get Roussel.
 
“Yeah, he got him. We were on the penalty kill the first nine minutes of the game. It was a disaster. We got crushed. We don’t want any repeats of that.”
 
Days before that encounter, terrible ice storms shut the city of Dallas down for several days, forcing the Flyers inside their hotel.
 
“The ice storm, we don’t practice for days and then we play an afternoon game and then Rinaldo goes out and get a [17-minute] penalty right off the bat,” Voracek said, laughing.
 
“I knew I was [bleeped] right after that. I couldn’t move. I knew it was over for me after that.”
 
All this aside, again, just as in 2011, depending upon what happens with others, the Flyers could find themselves in a first-place tie for the division lead come Saturday night.
 
“That’s crazy because just to keep pace this year, we have to keep winning,” Simmonds said. “We’ve played two more games than some of the teams.
 
“We have to extend the streak I guess. It’s insane with the division. We have to keep winning just to keep pace with everyone else.”