Wayne Simmonds scored the game-winner late in the third period as the Philadelphia Flyers edged the Edmonton Oilers 2-1 Saturday afternoon.
The Flyers went on an early power play when Brad Malone was called for high sticking. Claude Giroux was able to snap a sharp angle shot past Cam Talbot to give Philadelphia a 1-0 lead before the game was four minutes old.
After being outplayed in the first period, the Oilers ramped it up in the second frame. With 4:23 to go, Patrick Maroon outmuscled Nolan Patrick in the corner and took the puck away. Maroon stepped towards the net and fired a low shot past Brian Elliott to make it 1-1.
Simmonds sniped the game-winner with 2:45 left in the third.
Maroon said it was a tough way to lose but the team is not going to dwell on it.
“Obviously we can’t have that happen with two minutes left,” Maroon said. “We’ve got to drag those things in to overtime or try to win it. This one slipped away from us I thought. There’s nothing we can do about it now, we just have to find ways to bounce back and play against Pittsburgh.”
Head coach Todd McLellan said despite giving up the late goal, he liked what he saw from his team.
“It was a pretty evenly played game,” McLellan said. “Both teams checked pretty hard I thought, and there wasn’t a lot of free ice to get creative. We were a little bit slow out of the gate and then kind of found our legs as we got going. We made one more mistake than they did and they got one on the power play, we didn’t.”
The final shots were even at 24. The Oilers were 0 for 3 on the power play while the Flyers were 1 for 2.
The Oilers fall to 2-5 on the season. They’ll wrap up their three-game road trip on Tuesday in Pittsburgh.
Puck drop is at 5 p.m.
630 CHED will have the face off show starting at 3:30 p.m.