PHILADELPHIA _ The Flyers ended a three-game losing streak and moved closer in the playoff race by beating their old nemeses, the Pittsburgh Penguins, 4-0, at the Wells Fargo Center on Wednesday night.
With the win, the Flyers inched to within five points of the Eastern Conference's final wild-card spot. They have 13 games left and have to climb past three teams.
"You have to believe," right winger Jake Voracek said.
Wayne Simmonds scored his 200th career goal and Steve Mason collected his second shutout in his last seven games as the Flyers beat the Penguins for the first time in three tries this season.
Never mind that Pittsburgh was a tired team, having just returned from a four-game Western Canada trip in which the Penguins traveled nearly 5,000 miles. Never mind that, because of the snow that diverted the team's flight to Pittsburgh on Tuesday, the Penguins didn't arrive in Philadelphia until Wednesday morning.
The Flyers have had their own share of misfortune lately _ most of it on the ice _ so they didn't care about any of that.
It was just their second win against Pittsburgh in seven games during coach Dave Hakstol's two seasons.
With Pittsburgh trailing, 2-0, midway through the third period, Oskar Sundqvist was in alone on a short-handed chance, but Mason (23 saves) made the stop to preserve the two-goal cushion.
Claude Giroux helped ice the win by scoring his 14th goal with 4 minutes, 16 seconds remaining. Dale Weise added a goal with 47.3 seconds to play.
Sean Couturier and Simmonds (power play) keyed the victory, scoring 5:20 apart to give the Flyers a 2-0 second-period lead.
Couturier's goal, his second in the last 17 games, was set up by Weise, who had been a healthy scratch in the previous six games. Weise deflected Brayden Schenn's pass off Penguins goalie Matt Murray, and Couturier scored on the rebound with 19 minutes left in the second.
"It always feels good to get in, be physical and try to have a positive impact on the team coming back," said Weise, who has been a healthy scratch 15 times this season.
Weise notched his first point since Jan. 12 and just his sixth of the season, helping the Flyers gain ground in the playoff race. They play Thursday in New Jersey against the worst-in-the-East Devils.
"I think anything is possible; you see we're in every game," Weise said. "I don't think it's out of reach for this team. This is a confident group."
Schenn nearly gave the Flyers a 1-0 lead with 27.1 seconds left in a scoreless first period.
Voracek threaded a pass to Valtteri Filppula on the left side, and the center sent a perfect feed to Schenn, who was all alone in front.
But Murray did a split and made a spectacular stop to keep the game scoreless.
It was also scoreless because the Flyers' power play continued to struggle in the first period. Hakstol made some changes. Ivan Provorov was put on the first power-play unit, and Voracek went from the first to second unit, which had Radko Gudas and Michael Del Zotto at the points.
The new units produced no goals and a total of one shot in four minutes of power-play time in the opening period. That made the Flyers 2 for 28 in their last six-plus games.
The new-look power play, however, paid dividends as Simmonds made it 2-0 with 13:40 to go in the second period.
Earlier in the power play, Provorov kept the puck in the zone with a deft play inside the blue line. Shortly thereafter, he found Shayne Gostisbehere alone on the right. Murray turned aside Gostisbehere's drive, but Simmonds deposited the rebound.
Pittsburgh had been 16-8-3 at the Wells Fargo Center in games Sidney Crosby had played. Crosby, the subject of derisive cheers throughout the game, was blanked Wednesday and his five-game point streak against the Flyers ended.
