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NHL-best Flyers beat Rangers 4-1

Dec 19, 2010 - 12:20 AM Philadelphia, PA (Sports Network) - Nikolay Zherdev scored two goals and Brian Boucher made 24 saves to help the NHL-leading Philadelphia Flyers beat the New York Rangers, 4-1, at Wells Fargo Center.

Ville Leino and Andreas Nodl also tallied for the Flyers, who have won five in a row and improved to 10-1-3 in their last 14 games.

Philadelphia leads the league with 49 points.

"We did a good job of keeping them to the outside," said Flyers captain Mike Richards. "Their only strong chance that they had was the one that they scored on. Other than that, some shots (Boucher) stayed tall when he needed to be."

Rookie Derek Stepan found the back of the net for New York, which was aiming for a fourth straight victory. Henrik Lundqvist stopped 35 shots in defeat.

"I think that we didn't take care of the puck as good as we needed to. There were too many turnovers," said Rangers forward Brandon Dubinsky.

Zherdev gave Philadelphia the lead at 9:06 of the second period. After his teammates killed off his cross-checking minor, the ex-Ranger came out of the penalty box and accepted a lead pass from Richards before beating Lundqvist on a breakaway.

Nodl scored from his knees off a great pass from Claude Giroux to make it 2-0 at 3:19 of the third period.

New York forward Dale Weise, making his NHL debut, had a goal disallowed at 5:35 because of a distinct kicking motion, but Stepan put the Rangers on the board nearly three minutes later when he drifted down the slot and tapped in Alex Frolov's feed from behind the Philadelphia net.

Leino then deflected a point shot by Kimmo Timonen to restore Philadelphia's two-goal lead midway through the frame.

Zherdev's power-play goal capped the scoring at 15:06.

Game Notes

The Flyers are 9-1-1 against the Atlantic Division...The Rangers have lost four straight games in Philadelphia...New York forward Marian Gaborik played in the 600th game of his career.