PHILADELPHIA _ Flyers goalie Steve Mason, burned by Washington in last season's playoffs, was looking for a bit of redemption Wednesday in the team's first meeting of the season.
He got it. So did his teammates.
Flyers 3, Capitals 2. In a shootout.
Jake Voracek and Wayne Simmonds (winner) scored in the shootout and Mason made three saves in the extra session before a roaring sellout crowd that included Vice President Biden at the Wells Fargo Center.
The Flyers came back from a 1-0 deficit in the shootout.
A crowd of 20,011, a regular-season record, watched as the Flyers faced the Capitals for the first time since Washington won last season's playoff series, four games to two.
Washington's Braden Holtby and Mason took turns making timely saves during a third period in which both teams had excellent scoring chances.
Midway through the third, Holtby stopped Voracek on a two-on-one, then denied Simmonds as he was ahead of the pack and fired a backhander at the 27-yera-old goalie.
A short time later, Mason turned aside John Carlson as Washington had a two-on-one of its own. He later made a key stop on Alex Ovechkin in the closing seconds of regulation while Washington was on its first power play of the game.
The Flyers' power play, which has been among the NHL's best all season, failed to score for the fifth straight game. the team's longest drought of the season. The Flyers are 0-for-13 in that span, and they failed to get a shot in their two power plays Wednesday.
Mason, who struggled mightily in last season's playoff loss to the Capitals and was replaced by Michal Neuvirth, finished with 36 saves.
Claude Giroux, converting a Capitals giveaway, fired a shot over Holtby's glove to tie the score at 2 with 20.7 seconds left in the second period. The teams were skating four-on-four at the time.
Holtby (36 saves) had stopped Ivan Provorov as he came in alone from a difficult angle on the left, and the puck kicked into the corner to Capitals center Evgeny Kuznetsov, whose pass off the side boards took a funky bounce to Giroux.
From the high slot, the Flyers' captain deposited his 10th goal and first in the last six games.
"It kind of hit a lucky bounce on the boards and I was going to pass it to Provy, but guys on the bench have been yelling at me to shoot the puck, so I thought I would just put it on net," Giroux said.
After a ragged opening 20 minutes in which they were thoroughly outplayed, the Flyers came to life at the start of the second period.
They had eight of the first nine shots in the period, started throwing their bodies around, and tied the score at 1 on Michael Raffl's wraparound goal with 15:35 left in the second. The goal horn sounded and the red light went on after Holtby swatted at the puck _ which was in midair _ with his stick near the goal line. Referee Mike Leggo waved off the score. After a video review, however, Raffl was credited with his seventh goal.
About 5{ minutes later, the Capitals regained the lead as Lars Eller scored on a rebound, putting the visitors ahead, 2-1, before Giroux netted the equalizer.
The Caps controlled the first period, outshooting the Flyers, 14-7, and taking the lead on winger Andre Burakovsky's one-timer from the left circle with 1:36 remaining in the stanza.
Burakovsky converted Dmitry Orlov's pass from the right point and scored for the first time since he had two goals in the Capitals' season opener. He had gone 26 games without scoring.
Wednesday started a stretch in which the Flyers will play 25 of their final 48 games against teams from the suddenly powerful Metropolitan Division.
"We're really excited to play somebody we're going to see more than twice in a season," defenseman Radko Gudas said before the game, before he helped set up Raffl's goal.
"Any time you play teams like this in your division, there's a little more feel to it," Giroux said.
The Flyers play another Metro rival Thursday, traveling up the New Jersey Turnpike to face the Devils in Newark.
