Hayes: Flyers get much-needed win in shaky fashion

SOMETIMES, THE moment distills to nothing more than winning by any means necessary. For the Flyers, Thursday night was one of those times.

They had won two of their last 11 games and had earned seven of a possible 22 points. They had been outclassed in New Jersey and in Buffalo, where they should have outclassed their hosts. They had been steamrolled by the Rangers and Blues, teams that seemed to be their peers just 3 1/2 weeks before.

Three-and-a-half weeks before the Flyers were finishing a 10-game winning streak, their third-longest in franchise history. They hadn't been as hot since the 1985-86 season. All but three Flyers on the active roster were unborn when Mike Keenan coached Brian Propp and Mark Howe to that fast start.

As they faced the visiting Canucks, the Flyers' 10-game winning streak felt like it had happened 31 years ago, too. All things considered, they needed two points.

That's why Thursday night was all about want-to, and have-to.

The Flyers wanted it, badly. They got it, barely. Barely, and it was ugly, but they got it.

Claude Giroux shucked a shootout slump and scored the team's only shootout goal, on Ryan Miller, winningest shootout goalie in NHL history. Backup goalie Michal Neuvirth replaced Steve Mason in the third period, allowed nothing through overtime and stopped all three Canucks shootout tries for a 5-4 win. It was a two-point feast for a starving team hanging onto the bottom of the playoff ledge.

"It's probably a little early to be looking at the standings every night," began coach Dave Hakstol, who then admitted, "two points in the standings is real important.

"Over the last couple of weeks we've found a way to lose a point or two in games like this, whereas tonight we found a way to push for the win in the third period, and that's the big positive. We didn't sneak out the backdoor in the third period. We earned the two points in our own building."

It was, at times, hard to watch. In the first 19 minutes, Brandon Manning and Michael Del Zotto took overlapping, sloppy stick penalties twice, and the first time each drew a double-minor. The Flyers gave up a five-on-three goal, then another goal just as the power plays expired early in the second period. However, they evened it at 1, went ahead, 3-2 and drew back to 4-4.

Giroux appreciated the win, but he didn't like the method.

"We can't be looking at the results. We've got to look at the way we're playing," he said, then admitted, "it was a great team effort."

Giroux has an appetite for the playoffs. He knows Thursday's performance won't get the Flyers there, and it certainly won't let them advance.

But, as Hakstol said, first things first. And winning was first.

Everything else shrank in importance: things like Hakstol's line lottery from three games earlier or rookie Travis Konecny switching from left wing back to right wing, where he'd played most of his life (he scored the Flyers' first goal Thursday). Konecny's move put him next to Giroux, who skated Thursday with a "C" on one shoulder and a target on the other, since general manager Ron Hextall had called on Giroux, goal-less for eight games, to play better.

There were lots of chips on the table for the 44th game of the season.

"The way that the season's gone, points are so valuable, to come back and get the two points is big for us," Mason said.

There was no question. They needed to beat a dangerous Canucks club that was 5-1-1 in its last seven games but winless in its last two and awful on the road. The Flyers faced back-to-back afternoon road games Saturday and Sunday in Boston and Washington before a five-day layoff. Fall flat Thursday, Saturday and Sunday and there was every possibility that would enter the layoff out of the playoffs.

No team in NHL history had ever won 10 straight games and not made the playoffs. That is the sort of ignominy that stalls rising programs; the sort of scar that takes months, if not years, to heal.

And, so, the Flyers needed a big night from Mason. They got only 30 good minutes. Mason was overwhelmed on the first two goals and underwhelming on the second two. He was pulled in favor of Neuvirth after the 40th.

"At the end of the day," Mason said, "I'm not getting the job done. I just have to be better. I'm struggling right now."

They needed 60 minutes of concentrated effort. Well, they played like absolute hellions in the first two minutes and the last 10, but in the middle the focus waxed and waned.

They needed their young defensemen to play with discipline and focus. There were five remarkable giveaways by rookie defenseman Ivan Provorov. Two egregious misplays by Shayne Gostisbehere cost two goals; the second cost him two shifts. They needed to play with discipline, but they committed eight penalties.

Still, they won. In January, against a bad team, pulling their starting goalie, with sketchy play from their promising young defensemen, they won in the ugliest possible way.

But they won.

@inkstainedretch