OTTAWA, Ontario — Quite a 24-hour period for Claude Giroux.
Back in the area where he grew up and played his minor and junior hockey, the Flyers’ captain got engaged to girlfriend Ryanne Breton while out with his family Wednesday night.
Then Giroux went out and scored two goals, including the overtime winner, in the Flyers’ 3-2 victory over the Ottawa Senators Thursday (see Instant Replay).
“It was pretty special last night and to get the win, it was a good week,” Giroux said, adding he was equally nervous proposing as he was before his first NHL game.
Unlike Tuesday in a win over the Bruins when they were badly outplayed, the Flyers carried much of the play in the game Thursday. They went ahead 2-0 Tuesday before the Bruins tied it, and Thursday they fell behind 2-0 before coming back for the win.
“This was a much different game for us. Tuesday really was a tale of our goaltender doing a great job stealing us a couple of points,” Flyers coach Dave Hakstol said of Steve Mason’s 45-save performance Tuesday.
“I thought tonight was a real, good, consistent 61-minute effort right from start to finish pretty much right up and down our lineup. It was a much-needed outcome for us on the road and a pretty good effort by our group all the way through."
Comparatively speaking, Mason must have been bored Thursday having faced just 11 shots through the first two periods and 21 overall. The Flyers had 32 shots, with the final one coming from Giroux just 40 seconds into the fourth period.
“First period, we came out flat a little bit but we picked it up after and Mason did a good job shutting the door afterwards for us,” Giroux said.
“In the second and the third we were more aggressive and I think that’s the reason we won the game. There have been lots of games this year where we were the better team but we weren’t able to win. This time we were.”
Mike Hoffman opened the scoring on the power play for the Senators eight minutes into the game and Ryan Dzingel upped the lead to 2-0 two minutes into the second.
The Flyers got goals 60 seconds apart from Giroux and Michael Del Zotto (although it appeared Pierre-Edouard Bellemare tipped it in front) late in the second period, but up to that point, the Flyers were unable to solve Mike Condon in the Ottawa goal.
Hakstol had praise for his whole team Thursday but made special note of the work done by the line of Brayden Schenn, Wayne Simmonds and Travis Konecny. The line was held pointless but still created a lot of energy.
“I thought Brayden’s line had a pretty good night. The whole line hustled and worked extremely hard both directions,” Hakstol said. “This is a team that you have to skate 200 feet both directions against. If you don’t have the puck, you have to skate and check and I think that line, as well as the whole group, did that tonight.”
Konecny was playing his first game in the city where he played 2½ seasons of junior hockey and despite being held off the score sheet, he too thought they had a good night.
“You’re not going to score every night. On your line all you can do is just work hard and I think it’s a success because we got the win and our line created a lot of offense and took away a lot of their momentum,” Konecny said.
“I think we’re really happy with that and we just have to keep building off it. Personally, I have to make sure I’m bearing down. I gave up a couple of opportunities and I have to make sure I’m getting in front of my guy and tighten up things like that.”
A good start to the month is very important to the Flyers as they not only collected their second three-game winning streak of the season, but it also puts them two games above .500 for the first time this year.