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Wayne Simmonds

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Wayne Simmonds was Mr. Clutch for the Philadelphia Flyers over the final few weeks of the NHL regular season. The man dubbed “Wayne Train” kept Philadelphia on the playoff track.

The 27-year-old Simmonds put an exclamation point on his heroics Saturday with the game-tying and -winning goals in Philadelphia’s 3-1 win over the Pittsburgh Penguins at Wells Fargo Center. The two points was exactly what the Flyers needed to clinch the Eastern Conference’s eighth and final playoff spot.

Simmonds tapped in a perfect pass from Jakub Voracek late in the first period to tie the game at one, then deflected a shot by Shayne Gostisbehere into the upper part of the net late in the second period to give the Flyers the lead.

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The Flyers led by two goals and were on a power play with less than two minutes left in regulation when Simmonds tried to score on an empty net from deep in his own end. Icing was called and the Blue Jackets pulled within 2-1 on the subsequent faceoff. Columbus tied the game with 8.9 seconds remaining in regulation, then went on to win the contest in a shootout.

"It hurt," Simmonds told Philly.com Saturday. "It hurt a lot. It hurt me a lot. It hurt the guys. That was an opportunity where we could have had two points and not possibly leave it to the last game. So I needed to go out there and play my heart out for the rest of the season."

Simmonds turned the aforementioned blunder into motivation by recording seven goals and three assists over his last nine games of the season — He did not play in Sunday's regular season finale against the New York Islanders. His best statistical game during the stretch was on April 2 against the Ottawa Senators when he notched two goals and an assist.

Simmonds reached the 30-goal mark for the first time in his career on April 7 against the NHL-worst Toronto Maple Leafs when he tipped home a shot by Mark Streit with 58 seconds remaining to salvage a key point for the Flyers. In 81 games this season, Simmonds had a team-leading 32 goals and 28

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