PHILADELPHIA -- Steve Mason and the Flyers are playing their best hockey of the season heading into the Olympic break. Its a break team chairman Ed Snider would love to abolish. Mason stopped 38 shots, and Mark Streit and Michael Raffl scored goals, leading the Philadelphia Flyers past the Colorado Avalanche 3-1 on Thursday night. But with one game left before the break, the Flyers recent spurt could stall because of the Olympics. "I hate them," said Snider, the Flyers founder. He added: "Its ridiculous, the whole thing is ridiculous. I dont care if it was in Philadelphia, I wouldnt want to break up the league. I think its ridiculous to take three weeks off, or however long it is, in the middle of the season. It screws up everything. .. How can anybody be happy breaking up their season. No other league does it, why should we? Theres no benefit to us whatsoever. If anything, I can only see negatives." Reminded the Flyers reached the Stanley Cup finals during the last Olympics in 2010, Snider laughed. "Maybe I like them," he said. "I forget about that." Claude Giroux, who scored an empty-netter with 20 seconds left Thursday against the Avalanche, has plenty of time to rest during the break. He was snubbed Thursday by Hockey Canada when Martin St. Louis was picked as an injury replacement for his Tampa Bay teammate Steven Stamkos. Steve Yzerman, the Canadians executive director and Tampa Bays general manager, chose St. Louis over Giroux and Pittsburghs James Neal. "Its a farce," Snider said. "Hes one of the best players in the game. Its ridiculous. Hes better than half the guys on that team. "Anybody that thinks that Claude Giroux doesnt belong on the Canadian team, they dont know anything about hockey as far as Im concerned. Its politics, to a certain degree. He had to pick his own guy. His own guy is good, but Claude is better." The Avalanche, who lost 5-1 to the New York Rangers on Tuesday, couldnt solve Mason until it was too late. The Avalanche called timeout with 1:27 left and pulled goalie Semyon Varlamov in a last-gasp effort at the tying goal. It didnt work. The Flyers scored in the second period, when Streits shot from the blue line was deflected by a defenceman and wobbled past Varlamov for his eighth goal. Streit is heading to his fourth Olympics for Switzerland. The Flyers got a scare when centre Brayden Schenn was checked from behind into the boards by Patrick Bordeleau. Schenn quickly got on his skates, and his teammates went after Bordeleau behind the net. Bordeleau threw his right elbow into Schenns back and the Flyer thumped the board, and then hit the ice. Bordeleau was hit with 5 minutes for checking from behind and a game misconduct. Colorado coach Patrick Roy was red faced and furious as he argued with the officials that the hit didnt merit an ejection. Masons play picked up after a recent pep talk from Hall of Fame goalie Bernie Parent. Mason stopped 14 shots in the first period and made the save of the night in the second when he robbed Gabriel Landeskog with a glove save from his rear. "I think we didnt make it hard enough for him in the first 55 minutes," Landeskog said. "I think the last five, we were in his face, banging rebounds, and trying to bang one home there and made it hard on him. We started throwing pucks from different angles and tough angles and what not." Mason posted a 1.51 goals-against-average over his last four starts, stopped 95 per cent of his shots and had two shutouts. "The job as starting goalie every night is to make sure we provide stability back there, and thats what Im trying to do," he said. Raffls seventh goal of the season, off a nice pass by Sean Couturier from behind the net, early in the third was the insurance the Flyers needed to win their third straight. Notes: The Flyers had a video tribute and a moment of silence for former coach and general manager Keith Allen. Allen died Tuesday. He was 90. "I love Keith Allen," Snider said. ... Lauren Hart, the daughter of longtime former Flyers broadcaster Gene Hart, sang "God Bless America," alternating lyrics with Kate Smith, who was on a video image. Smiths rendition of the song has been a rallying anthem for the Flyers since the mid-1970s. Giants Jerseys China . LOUIS -- Alexander Steen scored a power-play goal with 59. Wholesale Giants Jerseys . Gordon reportedly failed another drug test and is facing a one-year ban. Gordon led the NFL in yards receiving last season despite being suspended two games for violating the leagues substance-abuse policy. https://www.cheapjerseysgiants.us/. 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"It felt good to come back from my whatever injury. Got back in there, get back in the saddle and it was good to see a lot of shots so you didnt have time to think and you just kind of read and react so it was really good." Clarke MacArthur had a goal and two assists to lead the charge while Erik Condra, Cody Ceci, Milan Michalek and Kyle Turris each scored for the Senators (30-29-14) Patrick Sharp, Marian Hossa and Brent Seabrook scored for Chicago (42-18-15). Antti Raanta faced 29 shots. Chicago has lost three of its last four outings and captain Jonathan Toews says there are too many mistakes happening when his team has possession of the puck. "Id say there was some good moments where we did have control of the puck where we were getting point shots and second efforts and some of the things were looking for when were playing good hockey," said Toews. "Other than that it was sloppy turnovers, sloppy mistakes that we really need to get out of our system. We need to get those plays out of our game. Its as simple as that. We need to play some character hockey. Frustrating way to lose." Toews wasnt alone in thinking the Blackhawks failed to show their best effort. "I didnt like our game," said Chicago head coach Joel Quenneville. "We had a good start and obviously giving up a shorthanded (goal) right off the bat they got some momentum off it and played well." Ottawa scored twice in the third and killed off a 34 second two-man advantage to hold off the Blackhawks before a crowd of 18,922 at the Canadian Tire Centre. Turris made it 4-2 with a power-play goal at the six-minute mark of the third and MacArthur scored his 23rd of the season midway through the period to make it 5-2. "I thought we competed better," said MacArthur. "We had a little lapse in the second, but youre playing Chicago and theyre going to make a push, but we were able to make plays in the third and not clam up.dddddddddddd" Frustration started to set in for Chicago midway through the third when Andrew Shaw speared Zack Smith. Shaw was assessed a major and game misconduct for his actions. After the game Smith admitted he was less than impressed by the play. "A spear is always looked upon as pretty bad for someone to do," said Smith. "Its kind of a cheap shot, especially where he was aiming, but you saw the replay." The Blackhawks made it 5-3 with a shorthanded goal at the 17-minute mark as Seabrooks shot from the point just trickled across the goal-line. Ottawa jumped out to a 3-0 lead, but by the end of the second it was a one-goal game. The Senators were outshot 23-5 in the middle period. Chicago got on the board midway through the second with a power-play goal as Sharp took a great pass from Jonathan Toews and tipped it past Anderson. Hossa made it 3-2 when he scored with 41 seconds remaining in the second period. Hossa intercepted a pass at the Ottawa blue-line, cut through two defencemen and squeezed the puck past Anderson. Ottawa had made it 3-0 just 23 seconds into the second as Michalek tipped in a shot off a pass from Spezza. "I thought we had a little more confidence," added MacArthur. "I thought overall we had a little lapse and those are going to happen, but we answered back in the third which is big and I thought our (defencemen) moved the puck a lot better, especially in the third when we were under pressure." The Senators held a 2-0 lead after the first 20 minutes. Condra made it 1-0, scoring shorthanded midway through the first. And Ceci made it 2-0 in the final minute of the period as he scored from just inside the blue line. Notes: The Senators were without D Chris Phillips who missed his second straight game and RW Bobby Ryan (sports hernia, out for season). LW Matt Kassian was a healthy scratcha The Blackhawks are without RW Patrick Kane (lower body, two weeks), LW Bryan Bickell (upper body, day-to-day) and D Michal Rozsival (lower body, day-to-day). D David Rundblad, LW Jeremy Morin and LW Teuvo Teravainen were a healthy scratch. LW Matt Carey made his NHL debut. ' ' '