FLYERS NEWS

Another night, another dramatic finish and another win for the Orange and Black tonight against the New York Islanders. Antero Niittymaki got his first start in goal in a little while tonight and made the most of it, saving 27 of the 30 shots he faced, just enough for a big win. Early on things didn't look so good for the Flyers. Late in the first period of play Richard Park scored for a 1-0 Islander's lead. Midway through the 2nd period of play Blake Comeau scored for a 2-0 Islander's lead. Then finally late in the period Danny Briere put the Flyers on the board with a power play goal, cutting the lead to 2-1. Early in the 3rd period of play Joffrey Lupul scored to knot it up at 2. Then late in the period Frans Nielsen scored for a 3-2 Islander's lead, but a few minutes later Mike Richards had the answer for the Flyers to knot it up at 3 and force overtime. In the overtime period neither team was able to score so the game went into yet another decisive shootout. In the first round of the shootout Mike Richards failed to score for the Flyers and Frans Nielsen failed to score for the Mets. In the second round of the shootout Jeff Carter failed to score for the Flyers while Kyle Okposo failed to score for the Islanders. Finally in the 3rd round of the shootout guess who, Danny Briere, was successful for the Flyers while Richard Park was stoned by Niittymaki to close out a 4-3 Flyers win. So the Flyers improve to 40-28-11 overall but remain 4th in the Atlantic division and 7th in the Eastern conference, still 1 point ahead of 8th place Boston, and 3 points ahead of 9th place Washington, with 3 games to play.