OTTAWA, Ontario _ As the late, great Rich Ashburn was fond of saying: Hard to believe, Harry.
The Flyers, a team that looked dead in the water after losing 10 straight early in the season, temporarily climbed into a tie for first place in the Metropolitan Division on Saturday afternoon.
They defeated free-falling Ottawa, 5-3, at the Canadian Tire Center and moved closer to becoming the second team in franchise history to win 10 games in February.
Claude Giroux secured the win with a sensational breakaway goal with 15 minutes, 45 seconds left in regulation, putting the Flyers ahead, 3-1. (The lead grew to 5-1 before a pair of garbage-time goals by the Sens.)
Giroux, who set up the Flyers' first goal, took a pass from Brandon Manning (three points) and beat goalie Craig Anderson with a slick backhand/forehand move. It was his 22nd goal and his seventh in the last nine games.
Ivan Provorov, Robert Hagg, Nolan Patrick, and Manning also scored for the Flyers, who won their fifth straight and raised their points streak to 11 games (9-0-2). They are tied with Pittsburgh atop the Metro and one point ahead of Washington.
The Penguins and Capitals play Saturday night. Pittsburgh is in Florida, and Washington is hosting Buffalo.
Goalie Petr Mrazek, acquired Monday from Detroit, stopped 25 of 28 shots and raised his Flyers record to 2-0.
After Giroux's goal, Patrick (deflection) and Manning added tallies. Manning scored when he fired a shot off the wall that deflected into the net. A stunned Anderson had gone behind the net to retrieve the puck before it hit the boards and took an odd carom into the net.
The Flyers are now 9-1-2 in February. If they win in Montreal on Monday, they will join the 1975-76 team with 10 February victories. The 1975-76 team went 10-0-4 in February en route to reaching the Stanley Cup Finals.
More numbers: The Flyers are 25-8-3 (second-best in the NHL) since they ended their 10-game losing streak on Dec. 4, and they are 9-0-1 since the Eagles won the Super Bowl.
The going-nowhere Senators, who are 15th in the 16-team Eastern Conference, appeared to tie the score at 2-2 when Zack Smith deposited a rebound with 7:44 left in the second. The Flyers challenged the goal, however, and it was reversed when the video replay showed Smith was offside 11 seconds before he scored.
Provorov scored the Flyers' quickest goal at the start of a game this season, and Hagg, another defenseman, later made it 2-0. But the Flyers played sloppily in the final 10 minutes of the opening period and settled for a 2-1 lead at the first intermission.
With Ottawa on a power play, Mike Hoffman ripped a blast from above the right circle past Mrazek, who appeared to be screened, to get the Senators within 2-1 with 7:46 remaining in the first.
The Senators, who entered the game 2-0 against the Flyers this season, had two golden chances while shorthanded in the final minutes of the first.
First, Mrazek denied Smith, who was ahead of the pack. About a minute later, the Senators misfired on a two-on-one break.
Provorov opened the scoring 28 seconds after the opening faceoff. Taking a right-wing pass from Giroux, Provorov jumped into the play and scored from the high slot for his 11th goal.
The Flyers' quickest first-period goal had been scored by Giroux, who tallied 48 seconds into a Nov. 28 game that the Flyers lost to San Jose, 3-1.
Hagg, of all people, weaved through the Ottawa defense and scored one of the Flyers' most artistic goals of the season as he sent a wrist shot past Anderson to put the Flyers ahead, 2-0, with 12:46 left in the first. It was his second goal of the season and first in 28 games.
The goals would keep coming. So would another win.
