Any time the Flyers win one in overtime, it's pretty likely that last goal will be Play of the Game. We'll have more on the Player of the Game in a moment. But for now, the man of the minute is defenseman Andrej Meszaros, who scored an OT game-winner for the second time this season. Here's the Giant's winner from January 18th:
And tonight's, below, followed by a few highlights from one of the best individual efforts I've ever seen.
Hey ya know what? How about we let JJ call this one too? Just for comparison's sake?
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The Flyers found themselves in an early 1-0 hole after a pretty closely matched first period, but had one of their characteristic dominant second periods, taking a 2-1 lead. After going up 3-1, they showed an unfortunate lapse, allowing Matt Martin to score twice and tie it up. Thankfully, Meszaros scored in OT off the great timed release by Ville Leino, and we were all spared the shootout.
Chris Pronger had to leave the game, marking the third time in the past week the Flyers were without one of their defensemen for a key stretch late in the game. However, Paul Holmgren has already said that Pronger, who took a shot off the hand or wrist, would be OK and that X-rays were negative. ::exhale::
The real story tonight was the play of Claude Giroux, who was simply amazing in this one from end to end. Hitting, passing, driving at the net... The best game I can remember seeing him play. G seemed to have a highlight on nearly every shift he took, but these two were among the best. First, an old school hip check, perfectly lined up by the backward-skating forward, getting back on D:
[update: We just had to swap in Mr. Flyer Guy's uploads of the CSN feed for those call by JJ]
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And of course, the beautiful dish he sent to James van Riemsdyk, behind the back/no look, to set JVR for a goal:
Full game highlights: