Devils Burn Flyers

Randy McKay got his revenge.

McKay returned to the New Jersey lineup following a three-game suspension and scored the first goal of the game in the Devils' 2-1 victory over the streaking Philadelphia Flyers on Tuesday night.

In the last meeting between the two clubs on Oct. 30, he was suspended for slashing Ulf Samuelsson. McKay reacted to what he believed was a dangerous knee-on-knee hit by the Flyers defenseman.

"It was tough to come back after 10 days," McKay said. "I felt fatigued at the end but it was a hard fought game. There was a lot of physical play. I guess you should be tired."

The Devils did an outstanding job on defense, especially the penalty killers who held the Flyers scoreless in five advantages.

"We were really solid," said Martin Brodeur, who made 15 saves to earn the victory. "We had no choice but to be solid facing a five-on-three.

"It was a good test for us. We had a rough time playing them in our own zone last time (a 5-3 Flyers win). We made it an issue to play them well."

Jason Arnott scored the game-winner late in the second period as the Devils extended their home unbeaten streak to seven (6-0-1).

John LeClair got the goal for the Flyers, who saw their five-game unbeaten streak (4-0-1) end. The loss was only the second in the last 11 games for the Flyers (8-2-1), which began the season with its worst starin franchise history at 0-5-1.

McKay scored the only goal of the first period in which the Devils dominated, outshooting the Flyers 18-3.

McKay took the initial shot from the top of the right faceoff circle and followed his own shot and converted the rebound at 11:04.

The Flyers showed more life in the second period and evened the score on LeClair's goal at 6:01. He finished off a two-on-one break with Mikael Renberg to extend his goal-scoring streak to five games. It was LeClair's 10th goal as he became the first Flyer to reach double digits.

Vanbiesbrouck finished with 29 saves and fell to 7-6-2.

The Devils played outstanding defense in the third period, limiting the Flyers to only four shots.

"I thought we had a real slow start," said Flyers coach Roger Neilson. "We bounced back in the last two periods which led to us tying the game.

"They did a good job penalty killing and checking. They checked well all night."

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