Giroux Scores Twice as Flyers Finish Road Trip with Win

By Kevin Durso, Sports Talk Philly editor 

The Flyers let a third-period lead slip away in San Jose on Saturday and felt like they lost a point they should have earned. On Monday night in the final game of a four-game road trip, they took a two-goal lead to the third period and made sure to hold onto it.

Two goals from Claude Giroux were part of a three-point night for the captain as the Flyers completed a successful road trip with a 5-2 win over the Arizona Coyotes. 

The Flyers were on their heels early against the red-hot Coyotes, who entered with a five-game winning streak. But for the fourth straight game as part of the road trip, the Flyers scored the game's first goal.

A broken play resulted in a goal as Shayne Gostisbehere kept a loose puck in at the blue line, got it toward the slot where Sean Couturier tipped it to Giroux. Giroux let go a long shot from the high slot and scored to get the Flyers on the board first.

On a power play late in the period, the Flyers struck again as Gostisbehere had a shot tipped by Derek Stepan and go in for his second goal of the season to give the Flyers a 2-0 lead after one.

Early in the second, the penalty kill woes struck again for the Flyers. Alex Galchenyuk fired through a screen to beat Cal Pickard and cut the lead to one.

The Flyers killed off two more penalties in the second before capitalizing on a chance of their own. Travis Sanheim nearly set up Giroux for a tap in into an open net but his shot was nullified. The loose puck went to the wall where Couturier was waiting. In the meantime, Michael Grabner collided with Darcy Kuemper, taking him out of the play. That left Couturier with a wide open net to fire and score, making it a 3-1 game after two.

At 6:35 of the third, the Flyers capitalized on a mistake. A turnover at the Flyers blue line sent Wayne Simmonds the other way. Simmonds fed Giroux with a pass and Giroux went to the backhand to score his second goal of the game.

Arizona did cut the lead to two with just under six minutes remaining on a shot from the high slot by Grabner. But the Flyers managed to finish off the game with an empty-net goal by Oskar Lindblom to seal the win and a 3-0-1 record on the four-game road trip.

The game ended with a pair of scrums that set the stage for the next meeting between these two teams in three days in Philadelphia.

Pickard made 35 saves in the win. Kuemper stopped 29 of 33 shots in the loss.

The Flyers and Coyotes meet in Philadelphia on Thursday night at 7 p.m.

Box Score

Scoring Summary

1st Period

• PHI Claude Giroux (5) (Sean Couturier, Shayne Gostisbehere) 12:34
• PHI Gostisbehere (2) PP (Giroux, Travis Konecny) 19:10

2nd Period

• ARI Alex Galchenyuk (2) PP (Oliver Ekman-Larsson, Clayton Keller) 1:14
• PHI Couturier (5) (Unassisted) 17:05

3rd Period

• PHI Giroux (6) (Wayne Simmonds) 6:35
• ARI Michael Grabner (4) (Richard Panik) 14:04
• PHI Oskar Lindblom (4) EN (Nolan Patrick) 18:11

Game Statistics