Jack Skille celebrates his goal in the first period of the Flyers' 3-2 loss to the Panthers in a shootout.
After handing the Florida Panthers a 7-1 shellacking on Jan. 26, the Panthers entered the Wells Fargo Center looking for revenge.
They got that successfully, tying the game with 11:25 to play and stealing away the game in a shootout. The Panthers won the shootout, 2-0, to win the game, 3-2.
Florida got the game's first goal just past the halfway mark of the first. A wrister by Jack Skille bounced off the pad of goalie Ilya Bryzgalov and into the net. Skille had been a healthy scratch for the previous two games for Florida.
The Flyers had a quick answer. On their first power play of the night just 52 seconds later, Jakub Voracek fired a snapshot past Jose Theodore to knot the score. That would hold to end the first.
Quickly in the second, the Flyers would strike again. Matt Read found a loose puck in front of the net and roofed it to give the Flyers their first lead of the game.
Solid play by the Flyers for the remainder of the period let that lead stand up through two periods.
Tomas Fleichmann found Stephen Weiss with a pass and Weiss buried the shot past Bryzgalov to knot the score at two at the 8:35 mark of the third.
The Flyers made a late third-period push and out-shot the Panthers, 5-0, in overtime, but the game went to the dreaded shootout.
Jonathan Huberdeau and Peter Mueller both scored for the Panthers in the shootout. Read and Claude Giroux were stopped by Theodore, who made 30 saves in the game, sealing the win for the Panthers.
The Flyers had a solid energy level in regulation and absolutely controlled the overtime. The only thing missing was the finish. The line combination of Sean Couturier and Read had multiple chances to end the game in overtime and the Flyers played solid defense.
But the Panthers also looked much improved from a couple of weeks ago. The defense for Florida played solid but ultimately Theodore was the star, making save after save after an early exit in the 7-1 Flyers win just two weeks ago.
Meanwhile, don't fault Ilya Bryzgalov too much. He didn't look great in the shootout – Huberdeau's goal was as unstoppable as they come – but there's a part of him that would probably like to have the first Florida goal for Skille back.
Either way, the Flyers brief two-game winning streak is over but they do get a point out of the loss. That makes for five total points on the homestand which closes with the Carolina Hurricanes – the same team they defeated to open the homestand – on Saturday afternoon at 1 p.m.
Kevin Durso is a contributor for Flyerdelphia. You can follow him on twitter @KDursoPhilsNet.
