Flyers Notes: Steve Mason a ‘good Backbone' in Win Over Capitals

Steve Mason helped get the Flyers a point earlier this week with a shootout loss to Nashville.
 
Mason made sure the team picked up both points in the Flyers' 3-2 shootout win over the Washington Capitals on Wednesday night (see game recap).
 
"I thought he was good all game, both goaltenders were good," coach Dave Hakstol said of Mason and Braden Holtby. "They both had some key saves throughout the 65 minutes. Mase for us was a great backstopper and good backbone for us through the whole 65 minutes."
 
It's hard to pick out all the saves, but his timely one near the end of overtime on Matt Niskanen allowed the game to advance into the shootout.
 
Mason was out of the net and sprawled like a scorpion on the ice, just getting his pad on the shot from along the goal line.
 
"He came across the net and it was like a scorpion kick there," Mason said. "A desperation thing to take as much of the upper portion of the net to take away. I had covered part of the ice with my pants."
 
Mason finished with 36 saves as did his counterpart, Holtby. It was the Flyers' fourth shootout win this season compared to three losses.
 
This was a three-point swing for the Flyers against a division opponent with four games in hand on them and chasing from behind.
 
"A hard-fought game, a battle," Mason said. "It's good to get back in the winning column. You go on a 10-game win streak, you can't let it slide. Two losses in a row, one we got a point out of it, but you can't let it slide and counteract everything you've done during the winning streak."
 
Ovie
The Flyers held Alex Ovechkin without a shot on goal until three seconds left in regulation. They rotated their three pairs of defensemen, but Ivan Provorov and Radko Gudas had the most shifts against him.
 
"Those pairs each got some time," Hakstol said. "You have to pick your poison. There are different offensive weapons. It's not a one-man show, that's the thing. It's pretty tough if you want to have just one singular matchup.
 
"That's not what we were looking for. We had an idea of some matchups we wanted and some of the rhythm we wanted. Both of those guys on that side did a good job. Again, it's everyone that is on the ice that has to do the work and fortunately enough for us, tonight we were able to get the job done."
 
Loose pucks
The Flyers took just two minor penalties and didn't allow Washington a power play until the final 1:48 of regulation. They killed it off in overtime. ... The Flyers set a new regular-season Wells Fargo Center attendance record with a crowd of 20,011. It bettered the old record of 19,997, done twice in March of 2013.