PHILADELPHIA (Ticker) -- After suffering through a five-game
winless drought, the Edmonton Oilers have now won two straight.
Ales Hemsky scored his first two goals of the season Sunday,
leading the Oilers to a 5-4 victory over the red-hot
Philadelphia Flyers.
The Flyers entered the contest having won four straight, but
faced a 3-1 deficit early in the second period after consecutive
goals by Hemsky.
"It nice to score a couple of goals finally," Hemsky said. "I
felt great with the puck the last five games. I was making
plays, so I know that if I stayed with it, that it would come."
On his first goal, Hemsky skated around defenseman Braydon
Coburn and slipped a backhander past goaltender Martin Biron
with 7:33 left in the first period.
"On the first goal, I got a great pass from Ladi (blue-liner
Ladislav Smid) and I had the speed to beat the defensemen,"
Hemsky said. "He tried to poke-check me and I got little lucky.
I moved a little quicker and I got the goal."
Just over four minutes into the second period, Hemsky again
skated around Coburn before cutting back to his right and
unleashing a shot past the glove side of Biron, who finished
with 23 saves.
"We really gave them a lot of room to execute their
give-and-goes, their passes and their 3-on-2s in the first 40
minutes - and that hurt us a couple of times," Biron said.
Edmonton opened a 5-2 advantage midway through the second period
on goals by defenseman Sheldon Souray and Dustin Penner, the
latter coming with 8:02 remaining in the session. Hemsky picked
up an assist on Penner's goal.
"We had a lot of chances tonight. It was really what the doctor
ordered," Oilers coach Craig MacTavish said. "It could have
been a 5-2 game, but there a lot of chances on both ends. It was
a good remedy for what has been ailing us as an offense.
Jeff Carter scored his seventh goal in as many games with just
under two minutes left in the second period, and Simon Gagne
tallied just 20 seconds into the third to pull the Flyers within
5-4.
Erik Cole opened the scoring for the Oilers midway through the
first period, but the Flyers responded on the power play a
little under two minutes later on Mike Knuble's sixth goal of
the season.
Gagne hit the post on a rebound attempt and the puck bounced
back to Knuble, who poked it in from the front of the net.
Then Hemsky took over with his first goals in 19 games dating to
last season.
"We did a pretty good job of establishing ourselves in the first
period," Cole said. "It was good for us to get that first goal
because we missed on a couple plays opportunities early on. We
gained a bit of momentum with the win and how we play and we
were able to get another good today."
Oilers goaltender Dwayne Roloson finished with 22 saves. He
denied Scott Hartnell on a breakaway with 9:07 left in the third
period to help seal the win.
"When you get behind early, you try to play catch up and the
game then seems harder than it should be," Flyers coach John
Stevens said. "If we played 60 minutes the way we did in the
third period, we would have had a better fate. We get down and
it starts to affect our whole mentality - and then we come up
with all kinds of urgency."