Simmonds sparks Flyers’ win over Rangers

Right winger Wayne Simmonds scored twice and goaltender Steve Mason stopped 24 shots as the Flyers defeated the Rangers 3-0 at Madison Square Garden on Saturday afternoon for their second straight victory, a feat that had not been accomplished in almost five weeks.

And yet despite what was a fairly well-rounded effort, it was the Flyers’ second line of Wayne Simmonds, Sean Couturier, and Matt Read that were ultimately the ones responsible for bringing home the second win of the weekend.

After a slow start, the Philadelphia Flyers are getting their season turned around.

“I didn’t know it was 10, but I knew it was a long time”, Simmonds said. “We weathered the first period and kept pushing through and that set us up for the rest of the game”. The Rangers fell to 0-1-1 this season against the Flyers, who entered the game with just 42 goals in 23 games to the Rangers’ 70 goals in the same amount of matches.

Flyers 3, Predators 2: Shayne Gostisbehere scored with 52 seconds left in overtime for host Philadelphia, which won for just the fourth time in 16 games.

“Everybody (is) figuring some things out, team-wise”, Flyers coach Dave Kakstol said.

In Saturday’s win over the New York Rangers, the Philadelphia Flyers lost stalwart defenseman Nick Schultz. We knew we were going to have each other’s back. “We got a big win in Madison Square Garden and we just have to keep that in our head, this mentality that we’ve had the last two games”.

They played well and so did the Coyotes in a crisp first period.

NOTES: New York played its first game without center Derek Stepan, who suffered two broken ribs in the Rangers’ 4-3 loss to the Boston Bruins on Friday. But what really hurt Schenn was getting an instigator penalty and 10-minute misconduct at that point, 10:58 into the game. I think Luke did what a good teammate would do, and I give him a lot of credit for that. Raanta made 17 saves in the second period when the Rangers, in the midst of a stretch of nine games in 15 days, had their legs disappear.

Simmonds’ first goal came off a terrific Read pass that sprung Simmonds on a breakaway.

“I did what any teammate would do in that situation”, said Schenn, who blocked four shots in the game. Simmonds had two goals and an assist.

Philadelphia’s lead grew to 2-0 at 3:06 of the third period as Couturier jammed a rebound past Raanta. Simmonds punctuated the win with an empty net goal from the Flyers’ side of the red line.

“It was huge”, Simmonds said. “But you look at the game as a whole (and) I thought our energy level and compete was a huge factor in determining the outcome”.

Until the Flyers’ second line, which came into the game a combined minus-33, went plus-7 to stun the Rangers.

“I would say the honest answer is that for some parts of some games, we haven’t been as good as we can be”, Rangers coach Alain Vigneault said. No question McIlrath got the better of the scrap, and the Garden crowd is starting to really take to the man once dubbed “The Undertaker”.

“We’re going to do deal with it”, Vigneault said, “and this is going to give other players a better opportunity to step on the ice and play”. Dan Boyle was New York’s lone scratch.