Giroux hits another high while giving mates sigh of OT relief
PHILADELPHIA » It was a play that could have crushed any ordinary team, but maybe the Flyers have become so accustomed to last-minute melodrama against the Boston Bruins that this time, it was easier to withstand.
The team that some three weeks earlier had allowed the Bruins to score a game-winning goal with 22 seconds left in regulation — not an unusual occurrence for a visit to Boston in recent times — were seemingly struck down by another late Bruins blow in the waning seconds of regulation on this Easter Sunday.
Four times the Flyers tried to clear the puck.
Four times the Flyers failed to clear the puck.
Killer B’s center Patrice Bergeron, held in check all day, thus had a chance to change the landscape and did just that with a great shot past goalie Petr Mrazek with just under four seconds left to play. The Bruins were turning the tables on the Flyers again ... until Claude Giroux willed them to stop.
Giroux, who tied his career-high in goals and surpassed his career-high in points when he opened the scoring 9:38 into the first period, closed it 3:39 into overtime when he broke clean, went to the backhand and lifted a puck angled on its side over Bruins goalie Anton Khudobin for a 4-3 Flyers victory at Wells Fargo Center.
“I was just trying to freeze him,” Giroux said. “Then it kind of flipped on me and I was able to put it in. So it was pretty fun. It was an important point.”
Giroux was part of a tremendous top-line effort to limit the effectiveness of the Boston trio of Bergeron, Brad Marchand and David Pastrnak. He’s been on a tear of late, elevating the Flyers to the verge of clinching a playoff spot and keeping them very much in the mix for a top-3 finish in the Metropolitan Division.
In what certainly could be called a career year for the Flyers captain, this overall performance may have been his best of the season. The two goals were just all-important sweet rewards.
“Not bad,” Giroux said of his line’s defensive performance against Bergeron’s line. “They’re one of the best trios in the league and they move the puck well, they make a lot of plays and I think we did alright.”
In this game, however, he went a step further, stepping up when it counted to take down a Bruins team that has been the best in the league in the season’s second half and has long had a mental hold on the Flyers.
With his swift and scary-good move on the breakaway in 3-on-3 overtime, Giroux took a pass from Jake Voracek and slayed any second thoughts about his shootout skills. He faked as if he was going to slide the puck through his legs on the forehand, freezing Khudobin long enough to open up the post on his backhand to flip the puck over the goalie’s stick side.
The shootout is the one facet of Giroux’s game that hasn’t gone that well in this career year. But the ability to change that, too, still remains.
“He’s got so many moves in his bag,” Ivan Provorov said of Giroux. “He pulled one of the highlight reel goals.”
“When you try a move like that you feel good about your game,” Giroux said. “Jake did a good job passing the puck and I just thought I’d try that.”
It seemed to be the perfect time to do it. Another most important game of the season, time ticking away on what had been an almost peerless performance on both ends of the ice for Giroux ... and just a few agonizing minutes after blowing the lead in the final seconds of regulation.
Add it up and it’s almost an MVP-worthy performance on national television.
“Clearly in my mind he is,” Flyers coach Dave Hakstol said when asked if Giroux is a likely Hart Trophy candidate. “It’s not just the points for me. When you talk about that type of award there’s a lot more to it, and he does a heck of a lot more for our hockey team than just score points. And believe me, it’s hard to score points in this league, and I’m not downplaying that. I’m telling you how important a lot of the other things he provides are to our hockey team.”
That’s obvious in the way Giroux has elevated the performances around him while posting the best numbers of his 10-year career. With Sean Couturier tallying a 30-plus goal season after never thinking of approaching that, it’s no coincidence that it happened when he moved to the top line with Giroux at his side.
Then there’s winger Travis Konecny, who had four goals when he was given a holiday gift by being moved to the top line on Dec. 23 in Columbus.
On this Easter Sunday, he’d score his 24th of the season.
“He’s having a career year, right?” Konecny said of Giroux. “He’s putting up numbers, he’s playing the right way every single night. I mean, his plus-minus (plus-21) is up there with anybody. He’s a great leader and I just think overall he’s definitely one of the stars of this league, if not in the top five of the entire league. He’s an unbelievable player.”