Flyers defense smothers Habs in 3-1 win

PHILADELPHIA – The Philadelphia Flyers defense stood tall Thursday night limiting the Montreal Canadiens to 16 shots in a 3-1 win.

Michal Neuvirth made 15 saves for the win.

“I consider myself a religious guy,” Read said. “I know things are going to change and I trust the guy upstairs to give me another opportunity to score a goal.”

Matt Read, who had not had a goal since early November , scored in the early in the third period.

“That’s what we need,” defenseman Mark Streit said. “Especially after having such a poor game defensively, you want to bounce back and you want to pay the right way. That’s what we did tonight.”

Sean Couturier and Claude Giroux had goals for the Flyers who improved to 26-20-6.

“No matter who you’re playing against you have to beat that line,” Flyers coach Dave Hakstol said. “I thought tonight [the Couturier] line, they went out and they won a heck of a lot more shifts then they didn’t.”

Carey Price made 21 saves in the loss.

“I think that’s what the back half of the year is going to be like. We played probably our worst game of the year in Carolina [on Tuesday] and we needed to atone for that. Tonight was a good start,” the Flyers’ Wayne Simmonds

Montreal dropped to 30-15-7.

“We got a good start, but as soon as we scored a goal our attitude changed,” Montreal coach Michel Therrien said. “We didn’t have the attitude to compete. … We stopped skating. We didn’t battle to loose pucks. They played a good game. On our side we didn’t compete at all.”