Laviolette juggles lines to get Flyers going

NEWARK, N.J. - Two nights after the Flyers' stunningly listless loss, coach Peter Laviolette wanted his team to be more physical, get more active on the forecheck, and spend more time at New Jersey's end on Thursday night.

The Flyers, Laviolette said in a pregame news conference, were "out to right a wrong."

They didn't, but you couldn't blame the King of Spring.

That would be diminutive center Danny Briere, who sent the game into overtime with his eighth goal in the playoffs, tops in the NHL, and had another dominating effort.

But Briere's 50th career playoff goal was a mere footnote because the Flyers coughed up a pair of power-play opportunities in overtime as they fell to New Jersey, 4-3, at the Prudential Center.

Laviolette's lines were new Thursday, but one thing remained the same: Briere continued to be Reggie Jackson on skates. Jackson, of course, was known as Mr. October for his World Series heroics.

Briere has 27 goals in the last three playoff seasons. That's nine more than anybody else in the NHL in that span.

The 34-year-old forward showed remarkable hands as he batted home the bouncing puck - off a rebound of a James van Riemsdyk shot - with 8 minutes, 56 seconds remaining in regulation to knot the score at 3.

The goal was scored 21 seconds after the Devils' Ilya Kovalchuk fired a shot off the post.

Laviolette, upset by the way the Devils had dominated the Flyers in a 4-1 win Tuesday, juggled his lines at the outset and throughout the opening period. Some of it was because Sean Couturier left the game in the first period after he apparently cut his leg when he and the Devils' David Clarkson got tangled.

But some of it was because he wanted to generate more energy than in Game 2.

In the first 20 minutes, the new lines didn't stop the Devils from setting up camp at the Flyers' end.

Laviolette broke up the top line, dropping Jaromir Jagr off the unit after the 40-year-old winger struggled in Games 1 and 2. For a while, Jakub Voracek replaced Jagr on the No. 1 line, with Claude Giroux and Scott Hartnell.

Jagr started on a unit with Brayden Schenn and Matt Read, and Wayne Simmonds replaced Voracek on a line with Briere and van Riemsdyk.

"Just trying to loosen things up, five on five," a subdued Laviolette said after the crushing defeat.

The Flyers' checking line - Couturier centering Max Talbot and Eric Wellwood - was the only unit that remained intact. That is, until Couturier left the game for the rest of the night with the leg injury.

Late in the first period, with the Flyers being badly outplayed and facing a 2-1 deficit, Laviolette scrambled the lines some more, putting Talbot between van Riemsdyk and Voracek at one point, and making changes to the other groups.

The lines started to develop some chemistry in the second period - the Flyers' best 20 minutes since Game 1. After being outshot by 14-7 in the opening period, the Flyers controlled the second period, holding a 9-4 shots edge and tying the game on a tracer by defenseman Matt Carle from the left circle.

The Flyers appeared to take a 3-2 lead when van Riemsdyk scored on a rebound late in the period, but the power-play goal quickly was waved off as Brayden Schenn was called for a controversial goalie-interference penalty, erasing the goal. Schenn may have grazed Martin Brodeur's pad or skate, but the goalie sold the call by flopping to the ice.

"It appeared there was contact with Marty, and if there was contact with the goalie, I don't have a problem with the call," Laviolette said.

Briere had a goal and an assist, and won 11 of 16 face-offs. He said his playoff scoring means nothing unless he gets his name on the Stanley Cup.

With the Flyers in a two-games-to-one series hole, time may not be on his side.