NEW YORK — Twenty-three seconds into the Flyers’ critical Monday night matchup against the Islanders, Steve Mason was already forced to answer the question as to whether or not he’d be able to handle the pressure of a 12-game stretch run for the playoffs as Nikolai Kulemin bore down on him on a breakaway.
Mason was ready, all right. He stayed calm and collected, followed Kulemin as he went to the backhand and made a clean blocker save.
“You’ve gotta come up with a big save early on like that. It’s something to build off of,” Mason said. “It was nice to come up with a big save early.’
Mason made enough saves to keep the Flyers in the game as their skaters slowly got their legs under them, finishing with 23 saves on 24 shots in their 4-1 victory over the Islanders (see Instant Replay).
And with the Flyers (35-24-12, 82 points) now just three points behind the Islanders (38-24-9) for the first wild-card spot and one behind the idle Red Wings for the second, every save mattered.
The Flyers didn’t record their first shot on goal until 9:32 had elapsed in the first period. Before that, they surrendered the breakaway and put themselves on the penalty kill after center Sean Couturier tripped Islanders star John Tavares. Mason was forced to make six saves in the game’s first five minutes.
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“You look at the first 10 minutes of this hockey game, narrow it down even further to the first three-and-a-half minutes through that first PK, for him to get us through the start was real critical for us,” Flyers coach Dave Hakstol said.
Another Mason save, this one coming in the second period, proved to be Monday’s defining moment.
With the Flyers killing off another penalty 12:51 into the second period and the game tied at 1-1, Mason was forced to sprawl cross-crease from left to right after the rebound he had allowed off a Johnny Boychuk slapper had landed right on the stick of Brock Nelson.
“It was kind of a shot through a little bit of a screen there. Hit off the top of my thigh rise on my pad there and went across,” Mason said. “I got my eyes on it quick and was able to close off the lower portion of the net there.”
The Flyers didn’t wait long to display their gratitude to Mason. Ten seconds after the save, third-pair defenseman Brandon Manning emerged from the penalty box, picked up the puck in front of the referee just past center ice and fired a wrist shot that beat Islanders goalie Thomas Greiss up high on the glove side.
Four seasons and 66 games into his NHL career, Manning had scored his first career goal — and it turned out to be the game-winner, to boot.
“It’s been a long time coming. Your first, everyone says you always remember it,” said Manning, who thought the puck had bounced off the referee before it landed on his stick. “I think the biggest thing is being able to contribute in games like this and situations like this.
“The biggest thing for our team is the win tonight.”
With three more games left on this road trip (including the second leg of a back-to-back in Columbus on Tuesday night) the Flyers will need every lucky bounce they can possibly get in order to stay in the playoff hunt, along with a string of strong performances from their starting goaltender.
After the news came out that backup goalie Michal Neuvirth is out for three weeks with a torn meniscus in his left knee, it has become apparent that the Flyers will lean heavily on Mason for the remainder of the regular season.
Whatever his workload winds up being, Mason will be ready.
“One down, 11 to go,” he said. “You just keep moving day by day.”