PHILADELPHIA _ After winning three of their previous four games against NHL heavyweights, the Flyers got decked by a lightweight Thursday night at the Wells Fargo Center.
Montreal 4, Flyers 1.
So much for the apparent momentum gained from the Flyers' 4-3 overtime win Wednesday in St. Louis, the defending Stanley Cup champion.
Goalie Carey Price is having a disappointing season, but you wouldn't have known it by the way he played Thursday, stopping 40 of 41 shots to carry the Canadiens.
The Habs got a pair of scores from Ilya Kovalchuk, the 36-yer-old winger who had his 58th multi-goal game of his career. Kovalchuk secured the win by scoring on a blast from the high slot with 8:47 left in the third, giving Montreal a 4-1 lead _ and giving him 27 goals and 53 points in 52 career games against the Flyers.
The Canadiens signed Kovalchuk to a two-way deal for $700,00 earlier this month. He will get $70,000 if he is demoted to the AHL. He has seven points, including three goals, in seven games with Montreal.
Montreal scored goals 11 seconds apart to take a 3-1 lead early in the second period.
But not before Price, 32, reminded folks why he has been one of the league's best goalies in his 13-year career.
With the game tied at 1-1, Price calmly outwaited Scott Laughton to make a move on a shorthanded breakaway, and he easily turned him aside with 18:30 left in the second.
Before the penalty ended, Kovalchuk scored on a rebound to put the Habs ahead, 2-1, with 17:52 left in the first.
Just 11 seconds later, Artturi Lehkonen got position on defenseman Ivan Provorov and redirected Phillip Danault's shot over Lyon (36 saves) to give the Canadiens a 3-1 lead.
Lyon, recalled from the Phantoms on Wednesday because of Carter Hart's abdominal injury, was making his first NHL appearance in about 13 months.
Rookie left winger Joel Farabee was demoted to the Phantoms on Wednesday to give the Flyers enough cap space to recall Lyon from their AHL team.
On Thursday, he returned and promptly ended a 15-game scoring drought by connecting on a rebound with 1:13 left in the opening period.
"It felt good. Obviously, it's been a while," Farabee said after scoring his fourth goal of the season. "...The puck kind of came out to me and I knew there was a lot of traffic and their goalie was probably going to be sliding out, so that's why I went five hole."
The Flyers' lead lasted 18 seconds. With Lyon scrambling to get into position, Tomas Tatar scored from deep inside the left circle, knotting the score at 1-all.
Both teams were playing on the back end of back-to-back games. The Flyers were coming off the dramatic win in St. Louis, and Montreal got booed by its home crowd at the end of its 4-1 loss to Chicago.
Montreal, which lost its two previous games (both in overtime) against the Flyers this season, has been better on the road (12-9-3) than at home (9-12-4) this season.
Conversely, the Flyers have been much better at the Wells Fargo Center; they took the league's best home winning percentage (.773) into the night.
But Price was the difference Thursday. He took just a 2.87 GAA and .907 save percentage into the game, but he had stopped 72 of the last 73 shots he had faced. He now has turned aside 112 of the last 114.
