Vigneault’s call for veterans Giroux, JVR is answered

Flyers coach Alain Vigneault held a hockey seance of sorts earlier Tuesday, recalling a memory for his Flyers team that seemed to play well for the situation this year’s club had helped get itself into.

Sitting on the brink of elimination from the Eastern Conference semifinals heading into Game 5 Tuesday night, Vigneault decided a history lesson was in order, with supposed scorers Claude Giroux and James van Riemsdyk as its primary subjects.

“When I look at this group and think of G and JVR, they were both there back, I think it was 2010 when the Flyers were down 3-0 and came back,” Vigneault said, referencing an historic Flyers playoff series against the Boston Bruins. “At that time, they were the Joel Farabees, the (Travis Konecny)s ... the kids that we have now. They definitely found a way to contribute.

“Now it’s their turn to put the big boy pants on and to get out there.”

Thus snugly fitted with pressure, each with their playoff goal totals at zero through three “round-robin” seeding games and nearly the whole of two playoffs series, Giroux and van Riemsdyk finally tightened their big boy belts and produced the way they’re supposed to.

None of their contributions were bigger than the assist Giroux had on the winning goal, swinging a pass to Ivan Provorov, whose shot was tipped down and in by Scott Laughton 12:20 into overtime for a 4-3 Game 5 victory over the New York Islanders.

“I was pretty fired up, probably one of the biggest goals I’ve scored in my career,” Laughton said. “But we’re still down in the series, we have to regroup and get some rest.”

“You want to produce,” Giroux said. “You want to be able to help the team. I was able to get a stick on it. I had a few chances in the first and wasn’t able to find the back of the net. But this went in.”

The win keeps the Flyers in survival mode in the Eastern Conference semifinal heading into Game 6 Thursday night.

“Found a way to make it interesting, I guess,” Alain Vigneault said, speaking of giving up a two-goal lead late. “But we found a way to win it, too.”

Brock Nelson and Derick Brassard had scored a pair of goals with 4:14 and 2:41 remaining in regulation, respectively, getting Islanders into overtime with momentum. But all along, Vigneault might have had a funny feeling that this one would almost magically work out.

He had called upon Giroux and James van Riemsdyk to up their offensive games. Giroux responded late in the second period, tipping home a Phil Myers point shot at 15:45, the deflected puck finding a hole between Semyon Varlamov’s pads for a tying goal at that point.

Then at 18:18, it was JVR, redirecting a Scott Laughton pass past Varlamov to give the Flyers a lead after two periods.

That fast, the two must-score players Vigneault had mentally called upon earlier in the day had produced. Now all they had to do was help hold the lead, but to complicate matters

Sean Couturier had been hurt in a collision with Mat Barzal late in the second period and would not be answering the bell for the third.

Giroux and JVR weren’t the only players who were goal challenged earlier in the series and through the playoffs, of course. Couturier, for example, hadn’t scored a playoff goal until Game 4. Moreover, Konecny, the team’s leading scorer during the regular season, couldn’t buy a goal in 14 postseason games (0 goals, 4 assists through the roundrobin and almost 11 playoff games).

“It’s on my mind, trying to produce a little more and increase my finishing around the net a little more,” Konecny had said after Game 4 Sunday. “I still feel like I’m skating hard, I’m working and I’m still trying to get my linemates opportunities. It’s obviously on my mind and I’m trying. It’s also not an easy game to score goals in. The bounces just haven’t gone my way.”

But Konecny would have two assists in this game, as he and Kevin Hayes were superb all night.

One of Konecny’s assists came on a terrific cross-ice pass to defenseman Matt Niskanen, who promptly drilled a slapshot past Varlamov for a 3-1 Flyers lead.

That looked like it would be enough. Of course, since it’s the Flyers and these playoffs, it wouldn’t be. It would come down to the end, where Giroux was there to start a big overtime scoring play.

“Obviously it’s a big game, we knew where we stood, do or die for us,” van Riemsdyk said. “It feels good. Every guy up and down the lineup were pulling in the right direction and it feels good.”

Now comes Game 6, and with Couturier’s status up in the air, it makes the contributions of Giroux, van Riemsdyk and Konecny all the more crucial.

Those big boy pants are still available for fitting.

“When OT started we went back to playing the way we were in the first,” Giroux said. “It was a great goal by Scotty.

“Whatever the message was from the coach, I think we answered it pretty well tonight.”