Flyers 3, Devils 2

PHILADELPHIA -- Growing up in the central New Jersey town of Middletown, Flyers rookie forward James van Riemsdyk had plenty of chances to watch the Devils and goalie Martin Brodeur.
 
He put some of that extended knowledge base to good use Monday as he scored his fifth goal of the season to help the Flyers to a 3-2 victory against visiting New Jersey.
 
"Yeah, definitely a time or two thinking about that, stickhandling on the driveway with my brother, and you always kind of relive scoring goals against guys like that," van Riemsdyk said. "So it's pretty cool to get one like that."
 
Darroll Powe and Scott Hartnell also had goals, and Claude Giroux had a pair of assists for the Flyers. Goalie Ray Emery stopped 33 of 35 shots.
 
The loss ended the Devils' season-opening nine-game road win streak. They fell one short of tying the all-time League mark of 10 straight, held by the 2006-07 Buffalo Sabres.
 
"Well, it's going to happen one day," Devils coach Jacques Lemaire said of the streak ending. "The thing with this is that you have to bounce back and get focused on the next game and try to win it."
 
David Clarkson and Zach Parise scored for New Jersey, which also saw its eight-game win streak snapped.
 
"We didn't play that great tonight," Parise said. "Too many long stretches of us making not great plays through the neutral zone, and that's when we find ourselves in trouble. That's what happened tonight."
 
The goal was van Riemsdyk's fifth of the season, and came after he missed Saturday's game against Buffalo with a bad case of the flu.
 
Linemates Danny Briere and Jeff Carter led on the forecheck and kept the play alive by poking pucks away from New Jersey players. Van Riemsdyk grabbed a loose puck in the slot, spun and fired a shot that beat Brodeur to the glove side at 10:38 of the third period.
 
"Danny B (Briere) and Carts (Carter) were great on the forecheck there," van Riemsdyk said. "It kind of caused a turnover, and I think the goalie might have poked it; Marty might have poked it out there. I was just at the right spot at the right time, and just threw it on net."
 
Van Riemsdyk is second among rookie scorers with 16 points, three behind leader John Tavares, but van Riemsdyk has scored his points in 14 games, seven fewer than Tavares.
 
On a night the Flyers honored Dave "The Hammer" Schultz, there was some old-time hockey at the end of the game as a pile-up in the crease led to bad feelings and lots of pushing and shoving. New Jersey crashed the Philadelphia goal in the game's final seconds, with Parise poking the puck in the net with 0.6 seconds left. The Flyers took exception to Travis Zajac pushing Emery and not allowing him to make a save.
 
"I think Ray has to be allowed to make the save," Flyers coach John Stevens said. "It was a big scrum at the net. Zajac is pushing him back into the net. I know he didn't push him back all the way until the puck went in (but) he's standing in the middle of the blue paint there. Ray has to have the opportunity to make the save and he didn't have that."
 
"They had a shot there and he (Zajac) came in and was whacking at it and it bounced back out," Emery said. "I thought he stuck around there and wound up pushing me. I know he got pushed after that, but I thought he gave me a decent enough shot that I couldn't stop the puck before it went in."
 
Regardless of the final score, Stevens said it was good to pack a win with them as they left following the game for a five-game road trip that starts Wednesday in Los Angeles.
 
"The two points was the main thing tonight as we head out on the road here," Stevens said.
 
Powe gave the Flyers a 1-0 lead at 7:11 of the first period. Arron Asham stopped a Brodeur clearing attempt along the right wall near the hash marks. He centered a pass for Giroux, who made a nice backhand pass to a cutting Powe, who beat Brodeur for his sixth goal of the season.
 
Hartnell made it 2-0 when he scored his sixth goal of the season -- all on the power play -- 44 seconds into the second period. Hartnell, just to the left of the Devils' net, backhanded a pass in front that hit off Devils defenseman Mike Mottau and into the New Jersey goal. Hartnell had drawn the power play with less than seven seconds left in the first period when New Jersey's Andy Greene cross-checked him in the goal crease.
 
The goal also tied Hartnell for second-most power play-only goals at the start of the season, with Ottawa's Alexandre Picard (2008-09) and the Islanders' Tom Poti (2006-07). Columbus' Ron Hainsey holds the mark with 8 power play-only goals to start a season, set in 2007-08.
 
Clarkson scored his seventh of the season with the Devils on a two-man advantage. Working the puck around the offensive zone, Patrik Elias passed from the point to Parise on the right post. Parise centered a pass that hit off Flyers defenseman Kimmo Timonen and went to Clarkson, who scored at 15:42 to make it 2-1.
 
Contact Adam Kimelman at akimelman@nhl.com.