Mike Hough's goal in the second overtime gave the Florida Panthers a 2-1 victory over the Philadelphia Flyers Sunday and a 3-2 lead in their best-of-7 playoff series.
The victory was Florida's second straight overtime victory and the fourth overtime loss in the playoffs for the Flyers, who must win Game 6 in Florida Tuesday to keep their Stanley Cup hopes alive.Hough scored at 8:05 of the second overtime, wheeling around in the faceoff circle to corral a rebound, then firing a slap shot over fallen Flyers goalie Ron Hextall.
The goal seemed inevitable; the Panthers buzzed around the Philadelphia end for most of the second overtime, outshooting the Flyers 5-1.
The Panthers outshot the Flyers 12-4 in the first overtime and had several chances to win.
The best came when Philadelphia defenseman Chris Therien swept away a goal-bound shot by Bill Lindsay that had gotten past Hextall two minutes into the overtime.
Trailing 1-0, Florida tied it 2:39 into the third period when Eric Desjardins failed to keep a bouncing puck in the Panthers' zone, and Florida broke out on a 3-on-2.
Just over the blue line, Dave Lowry dropped a pass to Stu Barnes, whose 35-foot shot banked off Philadelphia's Dale Hawerchuk and between Hextall's legs.
The Flyers finally scored the game's first goal on a power play at 7:02 of the middle period, one second after the Panthers got one player back from a 5-on-3 shorthanded situation.
Philadelphia kept the puck in the Florida zone for almost all of the 1:33 two-man advantage. Panthers goalie John Vanbiesbrouck stopped Petr Svoboda's shot from the point, but Svoboda followed up his shot and regained control of the puck.
He worked the puck to Mikael Renberg at the left point and Renberg passed across to Eric Lindros at the right point. Lindros shot quickly from about 30 feet, beating Vanbiesbrouck high to the stick side.
Less than a minute, the Panthers blew a great chance to even it up when Ed Jovanovski banked a short shot off the post. The rebound came to Radek Dvorak, whose shot toward an open net was blocked by a diving Hawerchuk.
The Panthers would have their own 5-on-3 power play later in the period, after Hextall picked up an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty for shooting the puck at Jovanovski following a stoppage in play.
But Hextall atoned for his miscue by making four quality saves on the power play. He stopped Ray Sheppard twice and also blocked bids by Rob Niedermayer and Martin Straka.
The Panthers played their game in the first period - conservative defensively, hard-skating on offense - and kept the Flyers scoreless, despite the fact that Philadelphia had a five-minute power play thanks to Paul Laus' major penalty for elbowing at 2:27.
The Flyers were actually outshot 2-1 during the power play, with their lone shot coming with one second left on the man advantage.
Blues 3, Red Wings 2
At Detroit, Jon Casey made 37 saves and Yuri Khmylev had a goal and an assist as St. Louis pushed Stanley Cup favorite Detroit to the brink of elimination with a victory in Game 5 of the Western Conference semifinal.
The Red Wings, who set an NHL record with 62 regular-season victories, lost their third straight for the first time since being swept by the New Jersey Devils in last year's finals. It also was just the fourth home loss for the Red Wings this season.
To advance to the conference finals, the Blues need only to win Tuesday at home, where they are 5-0 this season in the playoffs. If necessary, Game 7 would be played at Detroit on Thursday.
Wayne Gretzky and Brett Hull also scored for the Blues. Kris Draper and Vyacheslav Kozlov scored for Detroit.
The Blues beat the Red Wings simply by using quality over quantity. While the Red Wings flooded Casey with shots from every conceivable spot and angle - although most were from outside and poor angles - St. Louis made good use of its 21 shots by taking many of them from in front, many of them in close.
And while Casey was steady in net, Detroit goalie Chris Osgood made the more spectacular saves. But Casey made a key glove save on Steve Yzerman from the right circle with 12 seconds left and Darren McCarty's shot on the rebound was just wide left.
Casey, a little-used goalie before Grant Fuhr went down with a knee injury against Toronto in the first rounds of the playoffs, was the story for the second straight game. A week ago he left Detroit humiliated in an 8-3 loss - now he heads back to St. Louis on the verge of a shocking upset.
Khmylev scored the third goal for the Blues, giving them a 3-1 lead at 9:11 of the third period, the first career playoff point for the 31-year-old Russian.
But Kozlov scored 72 seconds later to cut the lead to one again.
The Red Wings' top four scorers in the playoffs - Yzerman, Fedorov, Larionov and Coffey - did not have a single shot on net in the first period.
Hull's goal, his first in the series since Game 1, moved him past his father Bobby Hull in playoff goals with 63, leaving him alone in 15th on the NHL's all-time list.