Matt Read leads Flyers in shutout victory

Photo courtesy of Kate Frese

 Michael Raffl and Evgeny Medvedev each scored second period goals. Matt Read added a goal and two assists. Steve Mason made 20 saves and the Philadelphia Flyers shutout the New York Islanders 4-0 on Saturday afternoon at the Wells Fargo Center. 

The top line set the tone for the first period. On the game's opening shift, the Giroux, Simmonds and Voracek line spent much of the first two minutes deep in New York territory. 

Philadelphia backed that up with a solid second shift by the Couturier line. From there, the tone was set. Play moved up and down the ice with Philadelphia carrying most of the play.

Jaroslav Halak was up for it. The Islanders net minder stopped all 11 shots fired his way to keep Philadelphia off the board. By contrast, Steve Mason needed to make only two saves in the period and the teams went to the locker room tied at zero after twenty minutes. 

The Flyers started the second period with 1:22 of power play time thanks to a Nick Leddy interference call late in the first. While the Flyers did  not score with the man advantage, they did score right after it was over. Michael Raffl beat Halak at 1:27 of the period.

Raffl slammed home the puck after Sean Couturier mad a nice pass from behind the net. The goal was his sixth of the year. Matt Read picked up the other assist.

Following the Raffl goal, it was a steady stream to the penalty box for both teams. First it was R.J. Umberger for delay of game. The Flyes killed off the penalty.

Scott Laughton was whistled for roughing not long after the Umberger penalty expired. With about thirty seconds left on the Laughton minor, Mikhail Grabovski was called for goalie interference. With the teams playing four on four hockey, the Flyers struck again.

Evgeny Medvedev scored his third of the season at 8:33 to put the Flyers ahead 2-0.  Read and Michael Del Zotto had the helpers.

New York took another penalty at the ten minute mark but the Flyers could not capitalize on it. Medvedev would head to the box at 12:06 but New York's power play lasted just three seconds as Anders Lee was called for tripping at 12:09. 

Seven seconds after the Lee minor ended, Frans Nielsen was called for cross checking. It would be the last peanlty of the period.

Mason made eight saves in the period and the Flyers led 2-0 after two periods.

The third period started out slower than the first two periods despite New York being down by two goals. The Flyers played smart hockey, getting pucks, not getting caught in the New York zone and picking their spots.

That's just what Matt Read did. Read took a pass from Mark Streit and skated in on Halak. He beat the Islander goalie through the five hole for his sixth goal of the season at 10:58 to put the Flyers up 3-0.

Five minutes later Radko Gudas made it 4-0 with his first goal of the year. 

The Flyers shut it down the rest of the way and skated away with the victory. The Flyers will be in action on Wednesday night as they host the Boston Bruins.

Bill Minchin is a contributing writer for Flyerdelphia. Follow Bill @wtfd103074