Blues allow three second-period goals in 4-2 loss to Flyers
ST. LOUIS -- It was probably fine that Claude Giroux couldn't remember how he scored his goal on Thursday night. It should be all over the highlight shows for him to see.
Giroux's 11th goal of the season capped Philadelphia's three-goal second period and the Flyers beat the St. Louis Blues 4-2 on Thursday night for their fourth straight road win.
Giroux made it 3-1 by blowing past two St. Louis defenders and scoring with a forehand-to-backhand deke. He finished with a goal and two assists.
"It was a nice goal," Giroux said. "To be honest, I don't really remember what happened, but we were up 2-1 there and we wanted that third goal. I was pretty happy."
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Michael Raffl and Matt Read also scored in the second and Ryan White added an empty-net goal to help the Flyers snap a two-game skid. Michal Neuvirth made 35 saves.
"What I see tonight is we had good goaltending, we had a good four-line effort, all six defensemen did a good job," Philadelphia coach Dave Hakstol said. "... It's a tough place to win and it's a good team win for us."
Robby Fabbri and David Backes scored and Brian Elliott made 25 saves for the Blues. St. Louis has lost four of five games in December.
"We stopped checking," St. Louis coach Ken Hitchcock said. "I'm sure the players said the same thing. Stopped checking. Stopped checking, opened up gaps, had some soft plays in the scoring areas against us and that gave them the three goals."
The Blues are 2-3-2 over their last seven games and 5-6-3 over their last 14 after starting the season 11-3-1.
"This is a league, the more you check, the more you have the puck," Hitchcock said. "The more you stay on the hunt, the more you play on your toes, the more you close gaps, the more you have the puck. When you're inconsistent in that level, you open it up. This has been an ongoing theme for a little while and we've got to get it solved."
After Fabbri opened the scoring 1:35 into the second period, the Flyers responded with three consecutive goals.
Raffl scored just 2:20 after Fabbri when he tipped in a centering pass from Brayden Schenn for his third of the season and first goal in 11 games. Giroux also picked up an assist on the goal.
Read scored his fifth at 6:39 when he collected a rebound of a long shot from Michael Del Zotto and was able to wrap it around Elliott while falling to the ice. Wayne Simmonds' secondary assist was his 100th assist with the Flyers and 300th career point.
Giroux scored with 1:54 remaining in the second when he skated around Magnus Paajarvi and faked out Elliott. Schenn and Nick Schultz assisted on the goal.
"That's pretty amazing to watch him put it under the D-man's stick and was able to make the deke at full speed," Schenn said. "That's a nice goal, and I'm sure you'll see that one on the highlight reel many times."
Fabbri scored his fifth goal after he was left alone in the slot. Dmitrij Jaskin found the rookie forward with a centering pass from behind the net.
Backes scored on the Blues' first power play of the game, 7:37 into the third period, after Simmonds went off for hooking. Backes redirected a shot from Alexander Steen and then slipped the rebound past Neuvirth for his eighth of the season.
Giroux assisted on White's empty-netter with 1.7 seconds left.
NOTES: The win was the first for the Flyers in St. Louis since Dec. 17, 2005. ... Flyers D Radko Gudas returned after serving a three-game suspension for an illegal check to the head of Senators F Mike Zibanejad. He finished plus-4 in 22:53 of ice time after being minus-1 in his first 22 games. ... Elliott was making his first start at home since Oct. 24. ... The Blues have not won two straight games since Nov. 7-10, a span of 14 games. ... The attendance of 14,428 was a season low for St. Louis.
