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Flyers top the Islanders, 6-3

Again the Flyers allowed a goal in the opening minutes of a game, but this time it didn't haunt them.

The Flyers celebrate after beating the Islanders, 6-3, on Thursday at the Wells Fargo Center. (Steven M. Falk/Staff Photographer)
The Flyers celebrate after beating the Islanders, 6-3, on Thursday at the Wells Fargo Center. (Steven M. Falk/Staff Photographer)Read more

Again the Flyers allowed a goal in the opening minutes of a game, but this time it didn't haunt them.

This time, they responded to an early timeout and an R-rated tongue-lashing from head coach Peter Laviolette and won in a rout, getting two goals from rookie winger Matt Read in a 6-3 victory Thursday night over the New York Islanders at the sold-out Wells Fargo Center.

The win was costly, however. Left winger James van Riemsdyk suffered a broken bone in his left foot while blocking a shot in the first period and he will be sidelined indefinitely.

Read, who snapped a 12-game goalless streak, scored his 17th and 18th goals, tying him with Colorado's Gabriel Landeskog for the NHL lead among rookies, pending Thursday's late action.

"I've been struggling a little the last month, and knew if I kept working hard, things would go my way," said Read, who collected three points.

Scott Hartnell gave the Flyers a 5-2 lead - and established a career high with his 31st goal - by scoring on a rebound from the slot after 1 minute, 7 seconds of the final period.

The Flyers allowed the first goal for the ninth straight game as Josh Bailey scored 1:35 after the opening faceoff. Laviolette called his timeout after 3:45, with the Flyers being outshot, 5-1.

If this were a cartoon, smoke would have billowed out of his ears.

"He probably leads the league, for coaches, for timeouts in the first three minutes of a game," Hartnell said. "Our starts have been absolutely horrible. It seems like we're giving up too much early, and it takes us 10 minutes to get into the game."

"His point," Hartnell said, "was pretty clear: 'If you're not playing [hard], you're not going to play.' The message was clear. The message was received."

From that point, the Flyers controlled the game, getting first-period goals from Read and Andrej Meszaros en route to building a 5-2 lead.

The Islanders cut the deficit to 5-3 when Kyle Okposo scored from deep inside the right circle with 10:49 to go. Sean Couturier, ending a 17-game drought, added an empty-net goal to close the scoring.

The line of Hartnell, Claude Giroux (three assists), and Jaromir Jagr combined for two goals and four assists as the Flyers slipped past Ottawa and into fifth place in the East. Giroux has a personal-best 52 assists, and his 75 points are one short of his career high.

After another slow start, the Flyers improved their home record to 15-10-5. Jagr, who moved to eighth on the all-time NHL scoring list, and defenseman Kimmo Timonen (500th career point) were among the contributors.

Timonen is sixth among active NHL defensemen in points and 55th all-time. He received a standing ovation when it was announced he had recorded his 500th career point, and Timonen waved to the crowd.

"I really appreciated it," Timonen said. "It's been 14 years, and if you look back at '93 when I got drafted as a small guy . . . to be honest, not many people believed I could do it, so it's actually a pretty nice feeling."

Jagr scored his 17th goal by circling behind the net, skating into the right circle, and beating the shaky-looking Evgeni Nabokov with a backhander with 11:02 left in the second. Thirty-nine seconds later, Read made it 4-2 by redirecting a perfect cross-ice feed from Wayne Simmonds.