It all happened so quickly.
A split-second blur that caught everyone from the anxious fans in the seats to the players involved on the ice offguard.
“To be honest, I don’t really remember,” Flyers captain Claude Giroux said.
But if the Flyers cap off this late-season surge with a trip to the Stanley Cup playoffs, it’ll be a goal that could be remembered as a pivotal point in the quest.
With the 3-on-3 overtime in its waning moments and the dreaded shootout looming, Shayne Gostisbehere knocked the puck away as the Jets tried to start a rush and shuffled it ahead to Giroux, who put a shot past Winnipeg goalie Ondrej Pavelec to give the Flyers a huge 3-2 victory Monday night at the Wells Fargo Center (see Instant Replay).
The Flyers find themselves in an air-tight wild-card chase in the Eastern Conference, and with the Red Wings hanging on for dear life against Buffalo on Monday, the Flyers were able to stay steady in the race (see standings).
While both teams have 87 points, the Flyers still sit ahead Detroit at the moment because they have a game in hand. Both teams are two points back of the New York Islanders for the first wild-card spot. The Red Wings play at Montreal on Tuesday.
The overtime winner was the captain’s 22nd goal of the season and his seventh career regular-season overtime winner, passing Simon Gagne’s franchise record.
“I tried to make a pass and was going for a change,” Giroux said of the game-winning play. “And I was in front of the net by myself. I tried to shoot it and it just trickled in.”
To the surprise of no one, Gostisbehere, the Flyers’ star rookie defenseman who’s already got a penchant for coming up clutch in overtime situations, found himself in the middle of the play.
Giroux’s attempted pass was cut off by Winnipeg’s Mark Scheifele, who had a goal and an assist himself. Scheifele tried to go the other way, but Gostisbehere dove back and somehow knocked it away before deftly tipping it ahead to Giroux.
The rest is history.
“It was more desperation than anything,” Gostisbehere said. “G (Giroux) just tried to get the puck through. Nine out of 10 times he normally does. It just hit a stick and popped in the air and I just followed it up and just tried to time it where it landed. I just tried to bang it out of the way because he was going the other way.
“I probably wasn’t going to get back. Gaggy (Sam Gagner) said, ‘Thank God you got that because I don’t know what I would have done on a 3-on-1.’
“It was a good play overall by G and it worked in our favor.”
It was oddly fitting that Giroux played the hero Monday night.
Heading into Monday’s optional morning skate, questions lingered about Giroux’s health after he took that ugly hit from Arizona’s Martin Hanzal and momentarily laid motionless on the ice with his eyes shut late in Saturday’s 2-1 loss to the Coyotes.
Giroux didn’t participate in the optional skate, but did his usual stretches in the arena hallways. After the skate ended, he confidently said he would play later in the evening.
He wound up with a goal and an assist in 19:02 of ice time.
“He told us the whole time he was good,” Gostisbehere said of Giroux. “You gotta trust him and it worked out tonight.”
Giroux’s linemate Wayne Simmonds, who scored his 26th goal of the season, wasn’t surprised Giroux made a massive impact against the Jets.
“He wears his heart on his sleeve the way he plays,” Simmonds said. “He always goes out there and he’s one of the hardest working guys on the team. He’s a great example to follow.”
“G’s an extremely competitive guy and someone everyone in this room looks to in big moments,” said Flyers goalie Steve Mason, who was again solid with 26 saves in his sixth straight start and 11th in the last 12 games.
“We needed it more than ever right there.”
The Flyers, who also received a goal from Mark Streit to open the scoring, desperately needed these two points.
So the importance of Giroux’s overtime goal is magnified because everyone knows what usually happens to the Flyers in skills competition. See last Tuesday in Columbus.
But in typical hockey captain fashion, Giroux didn’t want to put the spotlight on himself and chose to rather put focus on the team effort.
“We’re pretty consistent in the way we play,” Giroux said of the effort of the Flyers, who peppered Pavelec with 30 shots and didn’t face a shorthanded situation in a game for the first time since March 4, 2012.
“When you’re consistent with the way you want to play as a team and your identity and you come in every night and do it, I think you give yourself a chance to win every game.”
“That’s why he’s our captain, I think,” Simmonds said.
“I don’t think, I know.”