Flyers dispatch Panthers with ease

Circumstances could have conspired to make the first five weeks of the NHL season very different from what it's been for the Flyers.

Human nature being what it is, the deflated feeling they had from losing the Stanley Cup Finals on a fluky overtime goal in Game 6 against Chicago could have lingered through their short summer and into the start of the regular season.

The notion that the chance to win the long elusive Cup might not come around again any time soon could have been mentally debilitating.

Could have, but it clearly hasn't.

The Flyers showed again Saturday at the Wells Fargo Center how hungry they were to get back at it by brushing aside the Florida Panthers with cold efficiency. The final score, 5-2, was a true reflection of their dominance as they lifted their record to 8-0-1 in the last nine games. The Flyers have scored 13 goals in the last two games.

Mike Richards, who had never scored a goal in 19 career games against Florida, had two, including the one in the first period that gave the Flyers the impetus for victory.

"We're getting some bounces now, and it's nice to see we're capitalizing on them," said Richards, who has six goals this season. "That's how hockey goes sometimes. Sometimes you can't score a goal, so it's great when they're going in."

Claude Giroux, the rising young star, also had a pair of goals. One of Giroux's goals was of the grimy variety, requiring a video review to determine whether it legally squirted through a scrum in front of the net.

The other was quite the opposite as Giroux broke in alone on the Panthers' Scott Clemmensen and practically screwed the helpless goalie into the ice as he deftly transferred the bouncing puck from forehand to backhand several times before nonchalantly lifting it into the net on a backhander.

Giroux turned the play in the other direction by blocking a shot from defenseman Bryan Allen.

"I just try to read the goalie and think about what I'm going to do," Giroux said. "It [the puck] was kind of jumping, and that's not what I wanted it to do. I just tried to get a shot off, and it worked."

Richards' second goal and Giroux's first, which stretched the lead to 4-0 in the second period, came on power plays.

Eight minutes and 33 seconds still remained in the second period when Giroux scored his breakaway goal, but it raised the Flyers' lead to 5-0 and gave them a choke hold on the game.

"When we play as a team and everybody chips in, that's when we're pretty dangerous," said Giroux, who has a team-high nine goals. "The last few games we've been working hard and having fun doing it."

Once again, Sergei Bobrovsky, the rookie goalie with the cat-quick reactions, was in control as he stopped 34 shots.

Notes. Five Flyers are on the NHL's all-star ballot - Chris Pronger, Danny Briere, Kimmo Timonen, Jeff Carter, and Richards. Considering the season Giroux is having, it seems the young center was overlooked.