PHILADELPHIA _ The Flyers used some late heroics Thursday night to outlast Toronto, 2-1, and head into the All-Star break with a three-game winning streak.
Roman Lyubimov fired a rebound off the stomach of Toronto backup goalie Curtis McElhinney and into the net with 2 minutes, 37 seconds left to snap a 1-1 tie at the Wells Fargo Center.
It was Lyubimov's first goal since Dec. 14 and it enabled the Flyers to maintain the second wild-card spot.
In a battle of backup goalies, Michal Neuvirth made 27 saves to register the win and hand upstart Toronto its first regulation road loss in its last 12 games (9-1-2).
With their goalie pulled for an extra attacker, the Maple Leafs' Nazem Kadri fired wide of an open net in the waning seconds.
With 6:40 left in regulation, Toronto nearly snapped a 1-1 tie when Connor Brown's shot appeared to deflect off Shayne Gostisbehere's skate and off the left post.
An odd defensive sequence enabled Toronto's William Nylander to tie the score at 1 with 4:25 left in the second period.
Nick Cousins and teammate Brandon Manning bumped into each other, and Kadri picked up the puck, went behind the net and fed Nylander in front. Nylander got position on Gostisbehere and knocked in his own rebound.
About two minutes earlier, Neuvirth had stopped Mitch Marner on a semi-breakaway to keep the Flyers ahead, 1-0. But Nylander's 10th goal, on his seventh shot of the night, deadlocked the score heading into the final period.
Earlier, the Flyers used Wayne Simmonds' breakaway goal and superb penalty killing to take a 1-0 lead into the second period.
They killed off 5:57 worth of first-period penalties _ one carried over into the second period _ and allowed just two shots during that span. Most impressively, they killed a four-minute high-sticking penalty to Ivan Provorov, during which the Leafs _ who have the NHL's second-best power play _ managed just one shot.
Sean Couturier, Pierre-Edouard Bellemare and Simmonds were the forwards who did a bulk of the penalty-killing during that stretch, while Mark Streit, Andrew MacDonald, Manning, and Radko Gudas handled most of the work on the back end.
"They have a good power play. We know that; we did a lot of scouting on them earlier this morning," Simmonds said of the team's video work. "Our four-minute kill was huge for us. It got us a little bit of momentum."
Simmonds gave the Flyers the lead, taking a pass from Travis Konecny and beating backup goalie Curtis McElhinney with a slick backhand-to-forehand move with 7:45 left in the first. The goal was scored a little over a minute after the Flyers killed the four-minute penalty.
"The goalie went down first, and I put the puck over him," Simmonds said after scoring for the third straight game and lifting his goal total to 21, tied for seventh in the NHL at the time.
Simmonds will play Sunday in his first All-Star Game, which will be played in Los Angeles, where he started his career.
The Flyers don't play again until Tuesday against host Carolina, one of nine teams battling for the final Eastern Conference wild-card spot.
