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Briere caps comeback against old team, Flyers end winless streak

Feb 26, 2008 - 5:12 AM BUFFALO, New York (Ticker) -- The Philadelphia Flyers picked the perfect time to end their winless streak.

Daniel Briere scored the decisive goal in the third round of the shootout as the Flyers snapped a 10-game slide with a 4-3 comeback victory over the Buffalo Sabres on Monday night.

R.J. Umberger scored the game-tying goal in the third period for Philadelphia , which is now even with Buffalo for the eighth and final playoff spot in the Eastern Conference with 19 contests left for both clubs.

"It's big for our team right now, (to) battle back, persevere like that," Umberger said. "It's going to help us in the long run, build some momentum. To come back in this place, a place we have trouble winning, shows a lot of our team right now. It only seems right that Danny got it for us there."

"I feel like the last four, five games, my game has been coming around," Briere said. "Our line has got some chances and we haven't been rewarded. Maybe tonight was the break we needed to get back on the roll."

With one more win, the Flyers currently hold the tiebreaker over the Sabres.

A former co-captain of the Sabres, Briere made multiple dekes before stuffing his forehand attempt past goaltender Ryan Miller to give Philadelphia its first win since February 5.

"I was coming down, and obviously, Ryan knows me really well," Briere said. "I was going backhand. I thought he was leaning a certain way. I faked the shot to freeze him and felt he knew I was going backhand, so last second I just went the other way."

After both shooters were denied in the first round of the bonus format, Ales Kotalik gave Buffalo a brief advantage with a wrist shot to the stick side of Philadelphia netminder Martin Biron, another former Sabre.

Jeff Carter answered with a wrister that beat Miller just below his glove, and Derek Roy fanned on his attempt in the following round to set the stage for Briere's heroics.

The Flyers trailed, 3-0, in the first period but struck for a pair of quick goals as Carter and Scott Hartnell scored in the opening session, and Umberger tied it in the third.

"We let them come back from a 3-0 lead. We couldn't generate anything," Kotalik said. "We didn't play as simple as we need to against a team like Philadelphia, no pressure in their zone. There were no rushes. In a game like that, you have to play simple. That's what we didn't do."

After a delay-of-game penalty was called on Jason Pominville, the Flyers' second-ranked power play tied the game at 3-3 with 7:15 left in regulation. Umberger fired a wrist shot from the left faceoff circle that beat Miller to the stick side for his 12th of the season.

Roy opened the scoring at 6:31 and Clarke MacArthur tallied just 11 seconds later to give the Sabres an early 2-0 advantage. Pominville increased the lead with his 18th goal with 5:44 left in the first.

Biron, who made 26 saves, did not surrender another goal until the second round of the shootout.

Carter got the Flyers on the scoreboard just 17 seconds after Pominville's tally and Hartnell cut the deficit to 3-2 with 3:39 remaining in the period.

"Hopefully, we can learn from it," Pominville said of the loss. "Especially with how tight the race is right now. Everybody is still in. You're not too far from the bottom and not too far from the top. Every point is important, and we feel as if the last two games, we let two slip away."

Miller turned aside 32 shots.

Flyers enforcer Jesse Boulerice returned to the lineup after serving his 25-game suspension for a vicious cross-check on Vancouver's Ryan Kesler on October 10. Boulerice engaged Buffalo's Andrew Peters in a fight during his first shift.

Philadelphia bolstered its injury-riddled offense after the contest, acquiring Vaclav Prospal from the Tampa Bay Lightning for defenseman Alexandre Picard and a 2009 conditional pick.