Flyers defeat Bruins in shootout

AS A WHOLE, the Flyers know their strengths and they know their weaknesses.

For a team with so many snipers and danglers, the Flyers are terrible in the shootout - the one thing in hockey that can make or break a season. Mere points decide division titles, playoff spots, matchups and home-ice advantage.

Coming into last night's game, the Flyers were 29th in a 30-team league in the extra, extra session. They were a putrid 12-for-37 when racing in on goalies unimpeded since the inception of the shootout.

But in a new season - with renewed expectations - there is always room for change, right? What changed last night for the Flyers was not only a win in the shootout, which gave them a 4-3 victory over the Boston Bruins, but a third period in which the Flyers outplayed the opponent instead of breaking down.

"The shootout has not been our friend," Flyers coach John Stevens acknowledged. "There's no exact science. It was nice to get two points out of it."

Stevens looked as if he had it down to a science last night. Claude Giroux, the Flyers' third and final shooter, beat Boston's Tuukka Rask with three or four nasty head fakes and then Ray Emery stopped Michael Ryder. And that was that.

Prior to that, Giroux was 0-for-3 in shootout attempts. But it was a move that he had practiced.

"If it didn't work, I probably would've looked stupid," Giroux said. "When I saw Danny [Briere] shoot, I decided I was going to deke. It's fun when you score. With all the great shooters on this team, I didn't want to let the guys down."

Shootout aside, it was the Flyers' third and fourth lines that made the difference against last year's top team in the Eastern Conference. Fourth-line winger Dan Carcillo's yeoman-like work ethic gave the Flyers their initial spark midway through the second period.

"I really liked our fourth line," Stevens said. "I thought every time they got on the ice, they swung momentum our way. They clearly outworked whoever was on the ice against them."

After an Ole-Kristian Tollefsen shot from the blue line glanced off the crossbar, Carcillo dug the puck out of the corner and fed a wide open Darroll Powe in front of the net. Powe setup shop with the Bruins' Mark Stuart writhing in pain on all fours to the side of Rask.

"I went for the rebound and just tracked it down," Carcillo explained. "I noticed that Darroll was all alone . . . so I just threw it there."

"They were crashing and banging, doing what third and fourth lines need to do," said defenseman Chris Pronger, who opened the scoring for the Flyers in the first period. "They are an important part of the team. We need to get everyone involved and active."

They were able to do that last night by only taking three penalties, and one of those was due to a fight.

Coming into the game, many doubted that Arron Asham, the Flyers' newly minted first-line winger, could skate with the top dogs Simon Gagne and Mike Richards. Asham proved he could in the second period when he skated down the right side and blasted a slap shot by Rask to give the Flyers a 3-2 lead.

"I've got to definitely chip in ," Asham said. "In the second period we gradually started playing better and then in the third, we just outplayed them."

It was Asham's second goal in as many games. The last time he did that was in 2007, a big jump considering Asham sat out the Flyers' first three games as a healthy scratch.

But the lead Asham provided didn't last. Steve Begin pushed a weak putback on a Byron Bitz shot behind Emery just 3 minutes, 20 seconds later to reknot the score.

Even though the Flyers' didn't answer Begin's goal in regulation, the third period was perhaps the most complete 20 minutes the Flyers have strung together in this young season.

Emery made key saves and they killed off a terrible penalty call on Simon Gagne with less than 2 minutes in regulation and battled to win the shootout.

Said Pronger: "If we don't kill off that penalty, we are 3-4 this season."

"I thought in the third period we really got back to working where we had waves coming at them," Stevens said. "There weren't these ebbs and flows. It was more sustained pressure, which we wanted to see."

Still, as Jeff Carter said, it's just nice to have the shootout monkey off their back.

"We've struggled pretty much since the shootout came in," Carter said. "To get one under our belt - with nice moves - it's definitely something we can build on."

The Flyers outshot Boston by a 39-26 margin . . . Ole-Kristian Tollefsen pummeled Bruins center Trent Whitfield in a fight early in the third period . . . This was the first multipoint NHL game for Tollefsen, who had two assists . . . Jeff Carter was an impressive 14-for-21 in the face-off circle . . . All four of the Flyers home games this season have been decided by one goal, three of them by overtime or shootout.

For more news and analysis, read Frank Seravalli's blog, Frequent Flyers, at http://go.philly.com/frequentflyers.