Tom Renney had every right to worry about this game.

Going into Philadelphia to play the Flyers - the owners of three home wins all season - the setting was right for a letdown.

Playing with a depleted lineup - filled with many, who started the year across the parking lot playing for the Philadelphia Phantoms - the Flyers under new coach John Stevens came out and played hard all game.

A fortunate bounce or two could have made it a different game.

But it wasn’t in the cards, and the Rangers played a strong defensive game by allowing only 16 Philly shots in front of Kevin Weekes for a 3-1 win at the Wachovia Center.

“We were O.K., but we were just sloppy enough where it was scary enough,” Renney said to reporters in Philly. “We gave them opportunities to direct pucks on the net and gave them opportunities on the power play that could have gone the other way.”

But the Rangers seemed to be able to set up their shots and only the strong play of Antero Niittymaki [31 saves] allowed the Flyers to stay in the game. The Finnish goaltender made some strong saves early on and the shots that did get through were from bad angles or tough breakaways.

Like when Matt Cullen opened the scoring almost seven minutes into the game. Taking a pass off his skate right of Niittymaki, he was able to poke it past the goalie for his first goal in 18 games.

Although it wasn’t a thing of beauty, the forward will take it.

“Yeah, a lot of times that’s how it happens,’’ Cullen said as reported by Lynn Zinser of the New York Times. “I didn’t really care how it happened. I was just happy to see it go in.”

But less than 30 seconds later, R.J. Umberger got the goal back on Weekes’s only blemish of the night.

It was that kind of game for the first half. Even though the Flyers looked like they were outplayed, they stayed in there against the more talented Blueshirts.

“It's one of those games where you really have to try not to think about what's going on in that locker room," Cullen said as reported by the Associated Press. "We really just have to focus on our game and what we've been doing and what we need to do.

"I think we did a pretty good job. That's our leadership. Shanny and [Jaromir] Jagr are helping to steer the ship."

The struggling forward got in the board again with about four minutes left in the second as Cullen sent a pass to Jarkko Immonen, who snuck it by the sick of Niittymaki for the eventual game winner.

After that, Niittymaki was able to stop the Rangers until a fortunate bounce came the Blueshirts way with less than five minutes left in the third. Simon Gagne put a slapshot off Weekes’s mask which rebounded up the slot to the waiting Martin Straka. A 2-on-1 ensued and Michael Nylander blasted it past the Flyers’ goaltender to give the Blueshirts some insurance.

  E-mail this story |  Printer-friendly |  Discuss