By Sam Bush
Attention K-Mart shoppers and Flyers fans:
Your guys have officially given up trying.
Everybody, that is, but goalie Steve Mason (photo above).
T.J. Oshie and Vladimir Tarasenko scored in the shootout for the St. Louis Blues (43-19-5), and goalie Brian Elliott stopped Jakub Voracek and Wayne Simmonds as the Flyers lost in St. Louis 1-0.
Elliott made 28 saves and tied Jaroslav Halak for the Blues record with his 20th shutout for them. He did it in his 131st game with St. Louis; Halak accomplished it in 159 games.
Goalie Mason made 35 saves for the Flyers (28-27-14). He is the third goalie to have multiple shootout shutout losses in same season (Predators goalie Pekka Rinne, 2009-10; and Stars goalie Marty Turco, 2008-09).
“It was good game overall,” Mason said. “I was happy with that. Got some help from the posts, which you need sometimes.
“It’s not an easy place to play in that’s for sure. They’re a big, heavy team. Especially at home, the Blues play a hard game.”
Philly is 10 points behind the Boston Bruins for the second wild card into the Stanley Cup Playoffs from the Eastern Conference; Boston defeated the Tampa Bay Lightning 3-2 in a shootout Thursday.
The Flyers have scored five goals going 0-2-2 the past four games.
“I think when pucks were around the net, we were playing as a team and we had our chances,” Flyers captain Claude Giroux said. “We had pucks on net, we had our chances and we’ve got to find a way to put it in.”
Mason made the save of the game with 9:30 remaining, stopping Jori Lehtera from the goalie’s left after a Flyers turnover and a feed from Tarasenko. Mason then stopped Dmitrij Jaskin from the slot with 8:57 left.
St. Louis’ Alexander Steen hit the post for the second time with 5:55 remaining. He had Mason beat on a second-period power play in the final minute but hit the post.
Elliott made his biggest save on Voracek, using his left pad after a Tarasenko turnover on a drop pass with 7:32 to go. He made a glove save former Blues defenseman Carlo Colaiacovo in overtime.
“Mason played unbelievable down at the other end, so I was just trying to keep pace,” Elliott said. “We played our game that we wanted to, I think. My guys were blocking shots. You saw [Petteri] Lindbohm go down in a butterfly to take one kind of in the chest. That’s the sacrifices guys were making.”
