By Harry Allison
Flyers caption Claude Giroux scored twice, the second 40 seconds into overtime in the visiting Flyers’ 3-2 victory over the Senators on last night.
Giroux’s two-goal outing came a night after he was engaged to girlfriend Ryanne Breton of Ottawa.
“It was pretty special (to get engaged) and to get the win was icing on the cake,” said Giroux, who grew up in the area.
Michael Del Zotto also scored, and Steve Mason made 19 saves. The Flyers have won three in a row to improve to 12-10-3.
“It was a much needed outcome for us on the road and a pretty good effort from our group all the way through,” Flyers coach Dave Hakstol said.
Mike Hoffman and Ryan Dzingel scored Ottawa, and Mike Condon made 29 saves. The Senators dropped to 14-8-2.
Ottawa took a 2-0 lead just 1:57 into the second when Dzingel knocked down the puck in front and put a stick on it to lift it pass Mason for his sixth of the season.
“We had a good first, good third, but our second definitely we could have done better,” Senators coach Guy Boucher said. “We stopped shooting. We created less momentum in the offensive zone and they grabbed that and got some power plays and grabbed that part of the momentum.”
The Flyers rallied to tie it with two goals in minute. Giroux scored with 3:10 left, firing a shot off that caught the inside of Condon’s blocker and went in. Del Zotto tied it when he tipped in Mark Streit’s shot.
“Any time you blow a lead whether it’s one goal or two goals it always hurts,” Dzingel said. “We had a chance in overtime even though we gave up those two goals and we couldn’t capitalize, so obviously it hurts losing that one point.”
The Senators opened the scoring in the first on Hoffman’s power-play goal. He has five goals in six games.
