• Recap
• Bleachers

Timonen has big night as Flyers soar past Penguins

Nov 11, 2007 - 4:54 AM PHILADELPHIA (Ticker) -- Kimmo Timonen did his best to endear himself to the Philadelphia Flyers faithful.

Timonen had a goal and three assists to help the Flyers remain the league's only undefeated team at home with a 5-2 victory over the Pittsburgh Penguins on Saturday in a battle of Atlantic Division rivals.

Philadelphia, which went 4-for-7 on the power play, has won all five games at the Wachovia Center this season. Last campaign, the Flyers did not post their fifth win in the City of Brotherly Love until February 12.

Timonen, who was acquired from Nashville over the summer, recorded his first four-point game since December 20, 2001 against Vancouver.

The Finn opened the scoring just 91 seconds into the first period with a man-advantage tally.

Daniel Briere made a pass to Timonen, who blasted a shot from the left faceoff circle that deflected off the goalpost and hit the backside of goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury before slowly crossing the goal line to give the Flyers a 1-0 lead.

"I hit the post a couple of times in the last five or six games," Timonen said. "I don't think that we did anything different. We just moved the puck real well. I got to keep working, and hopefully these nights will come more often."

Timonen's efforts earned the praise of Flyers coach John Stevens.

"I thought it was his best game as a Flyer," Stevens said. "He was just terrific. He was composed and he wanted the puck. It seemed like something good was going to happen every time he touched the puck."

The goal was the defenseman's first of the season.

Timonen, like everybody else, did not find out he was credited with the goal until later in the game. The tally originally was given to Mike Knuble.

"I didn't know until the second period," Timonen said. "That was the first one, and hopefully there are a couple of more on the way."

Knuble doubled Philadelphia's advantage just over six minutes later.

Stationed again at the side of the net, Knuble tried to bang a rebound out mid-air but was unsuccessful. Pittsburgh defenseman Sergei Gonchar attempted to clear the puck, but did so to Briere, who then fired it back on net.

The puck hit Knuble in the chest before entering the net at 7:51 for a power-play tally.

"Our power play was struggling and we had a hard time building momentum," Briere said. "Getting on the board early allowed us to relax a little bit and play our game. That's what we needed - a little spark, like tonight."

With the Flyers on another power play, Joffrey Lupul scored his sixth goal of the season to open a three-goal bulge 5:40 into the second period.

Mike Richards blasted the puck from the blue line, and Lupul - who was stationed in front of the net - deftly deflected it between his legs and past Fleury to give the Flyers a 3-0 advantage.

Evgeni Malkin got the Penguins on the scoreboard exactly three minutes later.

Defenseman Ryan Whitney accepted a feed into the offensive zone, skated around Denis Tolpeko - who was recalled from the minors prior to the game - and drew the attention of netminder Martin Biron before feeding Malkin for an uncontested goal.

The goal extended Malkin's points streak to 10 games. He has recorded at least a point in 15 of the last 17 contests.

Pittsburgh captain Sidney Crosby, who was credited with an assist, stretched his points streak to 16 games, tying him with Detroit's Henrik Zetterberg.

The Penguins pulled within one after Gonchar's blast from the blue line beat a screened Biron with two-tenths of a second remaining in the middle period.

"We just had to win the third period and we would have given ourselves a chance to win the game," Whitney said.

Briere restored the two-goal cushion for the Flyers with eight minutes expired in the third. The high-priced free-agent acquisition gathered the rebound of Richards' blast from the blue line and put it past Fleury during a man advantage to give the Flyers a 4-2 advantage.

Briere said he was happy to snap a three-game goalless drought in a big game.

"When I was finally able to get on the board, it was big," Briere said. "I've hit some posts and had some empty nets that I could not bury in the past few games. It felt good to break out of that and get on the board."

"Our special teams were good tonight," Richards said. "When you play the Penguins, special teams have a bigger impact."

Penguins coach Michel Therrien obviously was not pleased with his club's special-teams play.

"Our special teams was not good," he said. "You got to find a way to kill penalties. When you give up four goals on the power play, you're not going to win any games."

Scott Hartnell added an empty-netter with 59 seconds left to seal the win.

Fleury made 26 saves for Pittsburgh, while Biron stopped 29 shots for Philadelphia.