On a rare snowy day in October, the Flyers concluded a topsy turvy first month of the 2011-12 regular season with a 5-1 win over old friend Brian Boucher and the rest of the Carolina Hurricanes. The Flyers finished the month 6-4-1. The club, which has today off from practice, will next play on Wednesday in Buffalo; the first of three games in four nights.

Last night's game was a strong bounceback performance for Ilya Bryzgalov, who turned back 24 of 25 shots and would likely have had a shutout if not for a fluky sequence in which teammate Scott Hartnell slid into him and took him out of the play, leaving a wide open net for Jussi Jokinen to tie the game, 1-1.

Although Bryzgalov may not have had to make a huge quantity of saves, there were several that were critical to the win. The team's defensive effort in front of him, while greatly improved from recent games and decent overall, was still far from perfect.

One of the game's pivotal sequences took place within the first two minutes of the opening period, as Braydon Coburn turned a puck over in the defensive zone and the Hurricanes pressed the attack. Bryzgalov was equal to the task. In the middle period, with the score tied 1-1, the Flyers got a bit panicky on one shift and started to run around in their own end of the ice. The Hurricanes generated a couple of good scoring chances on the doorstep, but Bryzgalov made a pair of saves and eventually froze the puck.

If Carolina had scored on either play, there is no telling how the game would turned out. Those were momentum saves. The opposite happened to Boucher in the third period.

Boosh had no chance to stop the Jaromir Jagr goal that gave the Flyers a 2-1 lead in the opening minute, but he absolutely needed to keep the game right there to keep his team in the hunt. Instead, when Claude Giroux moved up the ice on a shorthanded rush five minutes later, Boucher let out a bad rebound that a hustling Max Talbot popped in the net to all but seal the game.

The Canes disintegrated from there. Giroux, who made up for the absence of Danny Briere by basically taking over the game (along with linemates Jagr and Hartnell), showed tremendous killer instinct to race into the offensive zone and beat Boucher. The goal, scored 1:50 after the shorthanded goal, made it 4-1.

By this point, Carolina started to feel the heaviness in their legs from having played the night before (an outstanding 3-0 shutout of the Chicago Blackhawks). They allowed Jagr too much room to rip a backhander past Boucher for his second goal of the period.

The Flyers closed out the game on a five-on-three power play. Peter Laviolette briefly gave Jagr a chance at completing his first Flyers hat trick but then sent fourth-liner Zac Rinaldo over the boards to replace Jagr. Rinaldo joined fellow rookie Sean Couturier and veteran enforcer Jody Shelley on the power play, and nearly scored his first NHL goal. Boosh stopped him on the doorstep.

Prior to the late-game power plays, I liked the way the Flyers closed out the game by paying attention to defense, so that they could skate off the ice without lamenting a sloppy finish. Bryzgalov deserved that from his teammates, and he got it.

On the special teams front, Philly did a much better job of staying out the penalty box last night than they have for most of the season to date. They killed off all three of their penalties successfully, and not only got the Talbot shorthanded goal but also the game's first goal from Hartnell.

On that sequence, Hartnell exited the penalty box with the play in front of him, made a beeline for the Carolina net and was rewarded with a goal. It was the first of Hartnell's three points on the night (1G, 2A) and the first of four for Giroux (1G, 3A).

The Flyers still missed Chris Pronger (and Briere) on the power play last night. After the game, I asked Laviolette what adjustments the team needs to make without Pronger at the point on the power play and he insisted that the power play has continued to be excellent, with tremendous puck movement except for last night.

I respectfully disagree with Lavy. Without Pronger, other teams have no fear of the Flyers' point men and are able to collapse down low. Philly has gotten good looks from the point but their shooters -- especially Andrej Meszaros -- repeatedly miss the net. I see this as the biggest reason why the club is 1-for-14 on the power play in the three games since Pronger was lost to the eye injury.

Until Pronger returns, I think they need to generate a few more chances from behind the net rather than trying to feed the point men for shots that either miss the net or get blocked. The Flyers have scored so many even strength goals of late that the power play has not been a huge concern. But to say that no power play adjustments are needed when you don't have your biggest gun from the point is not accurate.

Other news and notes:

* Briere's upper body injury is considered a day-to-day issue. I don't know the nature of the problem but he had an icepack strapped to his ribs after the Toronto game last Monday. At the time, he insisted it was just "for maintenance" and I'm uncertain if that had anything to do with his absence last night. He certainly played well in the Winnipeg game. With the team not playing again until Wednesday, there is a good chance he's back in the lineup against his former Sabres teammates.

* Pronger was in good spirits when addressing the media after the first period. After being on best-rest for several days, he gingerly rode an exercise bike for a brief workout yesterday. He still has some blurry vision because the eye drops dilate his pupil but so far all is progressing well. It will be up to the eye doctor to determine when it's safe to clear him to rejoin the club, but it's obvious that Pronger is a very lucky man after the frightening injury on Monday.

* Ever the workout fiend, Jagr had a weighted stick with two small free-weight plates on it placed at his locker stall, even after the game. It has much the same effect as a donut on a baseball bat, making his game sticks feel feathery light and easily whipped around. By the way, while Jagr was being interviewed after the game, Max Talbot walked behind him and started singing the chorus of the "Moves Like Jagr" song.

* Early in the game, the Flyers made a lot more short passes and did more dumping and chasing rather than looking for homerun passes and line rushes that weren't there. Forcing Carolina to go 200 feet more often had something to do both with the Flyers' improved team defense last night and also contributed to wearing down the opponent after they'd played the night before. It was exactly what the Flyers did not do against the Blues.

* On the same night where the Flyers nearly earned a shutout one game after yielding nine to the Winnipeg Jets, the Jets lost 1-0 to Tampa one game after yielding eight to Philly.

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