PHILADELPHIA _ As part of their 50th anniversary year, the Flyers held Tough Guy Night and honored some of their past players Thursday at the Wells Fargo Center.
Then they went out and, in boxing parlance, withstood a flurry of shots and defeated the Winnipeg Jets.
Flyers 5, Winnipeg 2.
The Jets had the better scoring chances, but goalie Steve Mason outplayed his counterpart as the Flyers defeated a Winnipeg team that was 4-0-1 in its last five games.
Sean Couturier, Michael Raffl, Mark Streit, Wayne Simmonds, and Brandon Manning (empty-netter) scored for the Flyers, who were unable to hold third-period leads in two of their previous three games.
This time, they survived, and Mason _ who allowed a weak goal late in Tuesday's shootout loss to Ottawa _ was the major reason.
The Jets outshot the Flyers, 32-22.
With 17 minutes, 7 seconds left and the Flyers clinging to a 3-2 lead, Mason stopped Mark Scheifele's point-blank shot. A little over two minutes later, he did a split and made a glove save _ his best stop of the night _ on Nikolaj Ehlers' blast.
Simmonds scored on a rebound, his fifth goal in the last 11 games, to give the Flyers a 4-2 cushion with 14:14 to play.
With 7:02 left in the second, Streit, part of the NHL's highest-scoring defense, scored on a one-timer from the point that goalie Connor Hellebuyck misplayed, giving the Flyers a 3-1 lead.
But the Jets used some slick passing to get within 3-2 with 2:41 to go in the second. Blake Wheeler finished off the tic-tac-toe passing play, tapping in a feed from Ehlers.
Earlier, Couturier and Raffl scored 34 seconds apart _ on the Flyers' first two shots of the game _ to give the hosts a 2-0 lead, one they took into the second period. It was their first two-goal lead to start any period in the last 13 games.
Couturier scored his fifth goal from out front, roofing the puck just inside the right post after taking a pass from Travis Konecny with 10:47 left in the first.
On a two-on-one, Raffl scored his third goal, thanks to Matt Read's hustle. Read was closely guarded by rookie defenseman Josh Morrissey near the right boards as he dove for the puck and swept it out front for his all-alone teammate.
"Luckily it made it over to him and it was a great finish by him," Read said.
Dustin Byfuglien's first goal of the season cut the deficit to 2-1 early in the second period, which ended with the Flyers holding a precarious 3-2 lead.
On Tough Guy Night, Dave Schultz, who received the biggest ovation, Dave Brown, Ian Laperriere, Bob Kelly, and Rick Tocchet were among the former Flyers who were saluted.
Ironically, it was one of the Flyers' cleanest games of the season. Each team committed just one penalty.
