Referees prevail in Montreal 5-2 victory

[Andy]

Losers.

Tonight's PGH courtesy of Philly.com

MONTREAL - Saku Koivu had a goal and an assist and Cristobal Huet stopped 16 shots tonight to lead the Montreal Canadiens to a 5-2 win over the Flyers.
Alex Kovalev and Tom Kostopoulos scored special-teams goals in the second period, and Guillaume Latendresse scored in the third on a pass by Koivu, who opened the scoring 8 minutes, 53 seconds in.

Chris Higgins scored on a five-on-three at 16:42 of the third as Montreal remained undefeated through regulation in six games (5-0-1).

Mike Richards and Scottie Upshall scored for the Flyers, who lost for the third time in four games after a five-game winning streak.

Flyers center Daniel Briere assisted on Richard's goal and was booed thoroughly by the sellout crowd of 21,273 throughout the game.

Briere, who spurned Montreal's contract offer to sign a free-agent deal with Philadelphia, was booed when he stepped on the ice for his first shift and again every time he touched the puck the rest of the way.

Martin Biron made 36 saves and stopped a penalty shot for the second game in a row.

Biron, who stopped Phil Kessel's penalty shot in Saturday's 2-1 win in Boston, denied Canadiens defenseman Roman Hamrlik, who put a backhand off the right post on his first career penalty shot 13:12 into the second.

Flyers defenseman Randy Jones served the first game of a two-game suspension for hitting Boston's Patrice Bergeron from behind.

Richards was in the penalty box along with Jason Smith for Higgins' goal after both were sent off following a scrum in the wake of Richards' open-ice hit on Kovalev.

Ben Eager was given a game misconduct for his third-period fight with Kostopoulos.

Richards was credited with his seventh goal when Philadelphia drew even on a power play at 16:50 as the puck struck both of Canadiens' defenseman Andrei Markov's legs before slipping past Huet.

Kovalev scored an unassisted power-play goal for the second straight game 7:28 into the second to give Montreal a 2-1 lead.

Kostopoulos made it 3-1 at 11:38 with a shorthanded effort. Kostopoulos passed to Markov on a three-on-one, and one-timed the defenseman's return pass beyond Biron for his first Canadiens goal.

- Andy Geleff
Andy@flyershive.com

[Drew]

Hah. Golden title there.

In all honesty, the Flyers didn't come out with their best effort. Having 5 nights off will do that. The ghost call on Briere changed the momentum unfortunately, and gave the Canadiens the lead for the rest of the evening.

I'm sure Bettman liked his glass seats, and the uber-homer calls that the Habs got all evening. It's almost like the Flyers were afraid to hit anyone all night. Ridiculous.

[dudebeer]

I agree 100%. not alot of jump, but scared to hit anyone and weak shots, nothin on goal, but 1-1 game and a call like that. How about Smith almost losing an eye. What the hell was that? And no penalty. So life will be alittle tougher for the orange and black. Upshall looked good , really good considering a month off. Thats good. When is Gagne back, we need goal support for Biron, cause he's holdin the fort down.

[Andy]

Nobody knows what's wrong with Gagne. Our wonderful head injury staff is at it again.

[MikeyB99]

Remember that game Simon.. that was cool!

[dudebeer]

oh well, hopefully he's back by the time they come home, I travel 3000 miles to see all the boys. man we beat them caps bad eh, eager, awsome.

[dudebeer]

and the linesmen getting in the way of the richards fight, did he get the pop in the nose at the end of the fight when the refs got in the way. thats what it looked like