'Canes rally past Flyers, 4-3, on shootout goal

Carolina rallied from a 3-1 deficit to win on Rod Brind'Amour's goal.
By TIM PANACCIO
Knight Ridder Newspapers
PHILADELPHIA -- It was a brisk game with good skating, outstanding two-line passes and exciting goals.
Yet looking at the final score, you'd never know how much the Philadelphia Flyers dominated on the offensive end for the first 40 minutes on Tuesday night at the Wachovia Center.
The goals came in a flood in the third period as the Carolina Hurricanes earned a 4-3 shoot-out victory.
Rod Brind'Amour, the fourth shooter for Carolina, won it with a shot over Antero Niittymaki's glove hand.
The Hurricanes took over the top spot in the NHL's Eastern Conference with 66 points. The Flyers are third with 64, one point behind the Ottawa Senators.
It was a costly game for the Flyers, too.
Forsberg is injured
Center Peter Forsberg, who leads the team in scoring with 60 points, suffered a left-groin pull in the second period and did not return. Forsberg missed six games in late November and early December with a small tear in his right groin.
"We played great," Flyers coach Ken Hitchcock said. "The disappointing part for us is we wasted a heck of an effort -- a tremendous, emotional, physical effort."
The Flyers took a 1-0 lead on Jeff Carter's second-period goal. At 3 minutes, 19 seconds of the third, they made it 2-0 on Kim Johnsson's sixth goal off a pass from Michal Handzus.
The two-goal lead should have offered some comfort to the Flyers given how they had dominated action, but it didn't. Matt Cullen came up the ice on the next shift and beat Niittymaki with a high shot from the right circle over his glove hand, making it a one-goal game at 3:40.
Less than three minutes later, rookie defenseman Freddy Meyer scored his third goal of the season with a shot from the right point, making it 3-1.
'Canes persevere
But the 'Canes would not go away. Johnsson fired a pass that was picked off by Eric Staal. The puck then bounced off Handzus' stick or skate and went directly to 'Canes defenseman Oleg Tverdovsky, who ripped a shot in the low slot past Nittymaki, making it a one-goal game at 8:01.
Carolina's Erik Cole tied the score, 3-3, at 16:02 off a breakaway pass from Frantisek Kaberle with a backhanded shot over the goalie's shoulder.
The Flyers were all over the Hurricanes in the opening period and had nothing to show for it on the scoreboard. They out-shot Carolina, 8-2, as the 'Canes didn't get a shot until the final 2:17 of the period, when Cory Stillman shot off a rush on Niittymaki.
Mike Knuble thought he had scored in the opening minute of play on a tap-in of Johnsson's shot from the right circle. However, it was overruled on replay because Knuble raised his stick above the crossbar to knock the puck downward into the net.
"It seemed to me from one replay it looked a little bit high and the other it looked OK," Knuble said. "I was hoping for a break there. It would have been a good way to start the game."
Goalie Gerber jells
Several minutes later, Simon Gagne had a breakaway, but Carolina goalie Martin Gerber made a kick save on him.
"We had a 3-1 lead. Usually, we are in good shape when we're up 3-1, but twice we had the puck and turned it over," Gagne said. "It looks like every time we make a mistake like that, the other team scores. And it happened again tonight."
Gerber faced even more intense pressure in the second period. At one point, the Flyers were out-shooting the Canes by 14-2. They had a two-man advantage for 1:04, but Gerber again got a pad on Gagne's open shot in the high slot.
Carter finally broke the scoreless tie at 12:37 of the second with his 11th goal of the season. Chris Therien, not known for his deft breakaway passes, sent Carter a pass through neutral ice, and the Flyers rookie did some stick-handling past Ray Whitney into the Hurricanes' zone.