Third period spring Flyers forward into ninth straight win

There’s probably a way better way to write this headline, but that’s the best I could come up with, so back off!

The Philadelphia Flyers didn’t play well as a team, but Carter Hart gave a performance so excellently executed that he gave his team a shot to steal a “let down” game.

Claude Giroux willed a couple of pucks into the net to thank Hart for his effort, and Philly extended its winning streak to nine straight with a 3-1 victory over the Buffalo Sabres on Saturday night, at the Wells Fargo Center.

The Flyers are now 25-5-4 at home, a league best 19-5-1 overall since January 8th, and share the exact same 41-20-7 record as the division-leading Washington Capitals. The Flyers and Caps both have 31 regulation wins, but Washington has one more non-shootout win, which seems like a silly distinction, considering’s Philly’s +38 goal-differential is substantially higher than the Capitals’ +26. Just sayin’.

OK, I’m done rambling through numbers.

The Director of Fun and Games returns from a two-game absence to celebrate the fact that his first show back wasn’t the end of the winning streak, and the time wasted in a pretty boring game wasn’t completely wasted.