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Kubina, Maple Leafs ground Flyers again

Mar 13, 2008 - 3:01 AM PHILADELPHIA (Ticker) -- Pavel Kubina did in the Philadelphia Flyers again.

The defenseman recorded his second game-winning goal in as many days as the Toronto Maple Leafs completed a home-and-home sweep of the Flyers by skating to a 3-2 victory on Wednesday.

On Tuesday, Kubina scored his second goal of the game with 54 seconds remaining in overtime as the Maple Leafs overcame a three-goal deficit in the third period to post a 4-3 victory in Toronto.

In Wednesday's contest, defenseman Ian White and Alexei Ponikarovsky scored for Toronto (32-30-10), which climbed within five points of eighth place Philadelphia (35-27-9) in the Eastern Conference.

"It just keeps you alive," Maple Leafs coach Paul Maurice said. "That's what we've been trying to do. We needed four points in these two games - and we got them."

"Hopefully it's the start of a slide for them and the beginning of a roll for us," White said. "With a little help, we'll pass them."

The Maple Leafs, however, received some bad news when captain Mats Sundin did not return for the second period after suffering a strained groin muscle. The 16-year veteran has 32 goals and a team-leading 77 points in 72 games this season.

"He's got a bit of a groin strain and he's day-to-day," Maurice said. "We're hopeful that he plays Saturday (vs. Buffalo). It's not a major thing. He tried to warm it up and it wouldn't, so we made the call to pull him."

"He's the leader of our club, no question," White said. "Everyone else stepped up and that's what good clubs do."

Jeff Carter and Mike Knuble tallied for the Flyers, who fell to 5-2-2 in their last nine games to remain one point behind the Boston Bruins (36-26-8) for seventh place in the East.

"I think that we're all disappointed to only get one point of this series," Knuble said. "We're 2-2 going into the third and we can't get that break to win the game."

"We know that we have a good team," said Briere, who assisted on Knuble's power-play goal in the second period to extend his consecutive points streak to six games. "That is where I'm disappointed because I see us as a top five team in the conference. Right now, we're losing precious points."

With the teams tied at 2-2 just 69 seconds into the third period, Kubina gave Toronto the lead after by using a Matt Stajan screen and blasting the puck past Martin Biron for his ninth goal of the season.

"I think the last power play, we had nobody who wanted the puck," Maurice said. "Pavel (had) the big shot and he's feeling real good with the puck back there. And that is so important for us in this game."

"They set a good screen," Biron said. "I saw where Kubina was when he took the shot but Stajan moved in the way. It just caught the numbers on my jersey and it went in."

After White opened the scoring at 3:55 of the first period, Carter leveled the contest nearly three minutes later after taking advantage of a Toronto miscue and fired a shot past Vesa Toskala for his 27th goal of the season.

Ponikarovsky regained the lead for Toronto just over five minutes later, but Knuble deflected a shot by All-Star defenseman Kimmo Timonen past Toskala for his 26th goal of the season to tie the contest at 2-2 midway through the second period.

"The amazing thing is that we're still in this thing," Knuble said. "Ten games to go and we can still control where we go."