PHILADELPHIA -- Claude Giroux's Game 3 started maybe 39 hours before the first faceoff yesterday between his Flyers and the Penguins.

The Philadelphia rookie winger was on the team's charter flight home from Pittsburgh late Friday night ruminating about the penalty he took for slashing winger Chris Kunitz that gave the Penguins a five-on-three power play late in overtime of Game 2. The Penguins scored with the two-man advantage for a 3-2 win and a two-game lead in the first-round series.

Flyers coach John Stevens sought out the 21-year-old on the jet and sat next to him.

"It was good for him to come and see me. I was a little down on myself for making that penalty, but he came to me and said, 'Don't worry about it. You have to bounce back,'" Giroux said yesterday after doing just that.

He scored a huge tiebreaking goal, then while short-handed poached the puck from veteran Penguins defenseman Sergei Gonchar and made a honey of a pass to Simon Gagne to set up the eventual winning goal in a 6-3 victory at Wachovia Center that got the Flyers back in the series at two games to one.

Giroux even got into a scrap with Penguins winger Tyler Kennedy. The fact that he and Kennedy received roughing minors rather than fighting major penalties prevented Giroux from completing a "Gordie Howe hat trick."

It was quite a turnaround for the young player who had nine goals, 27 points during the season and captured the attention of the Wachovia Center fans, who took to showering him with chants of "Rooooooo," drawing out the final syllable of his name.

"I think he felt really bad because he cares," Stevens said of Giroux's penalty in Game 2.

"A part of being a good pro is, you don't let a mistake one day affect your next shift. I thought it was important he try to do that, and he did."

Giroux, a third-liner, had one assist and a plus-minus rating of minus-2 through the first two games of the series. And that penalty, when a broken stick gave away his action.

"That was a pretty dumb play on my part," Giroux said. "I shouldn't have done that. But I didn't think the stick was going to break. The ref saw the stick break and he had to call it."

Things were a lot different yesterday.

The Penguins scored in the final 12 seconds of the first period and the first 13 seconds of the second period to tie the score, 2-2.

At 4:32 of the second period, Giroux took a cross-slot feed from linemate Daniel Briere, who had collected a rebound to the left side of the Penguins' net and drawn goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury in that direction. Giroux had an empty half-net and made quick use of it to restore Philadelphia's lead.

His assist was even more impressive. He chased Gonchar -- the quarterback of the Penguins' power play -- behind the Penguins' net and came away with his prize.

"I saw him going to the puck and I was able to put my stick on his stick, and I just took the puck," Giroux said. "I was trying to get that puck from him because he's pretty dangerous with it."

Giroux is showing signs of being special with the disk, too.

The goal was similar to the one Giroux scored, but this time it was Giroux setting up Gagne on a back-door play.

"He's been known to have elite vision," Stevens said. "That play he made to Gagne, I'm not sure there are many players that are capable of making a play like that. He just didn't throw it there blind. He hung onto it and [Gagne] has good offensive instincts. He threaded the needle and hit [Gagne] back post.

"It was really an unbelievable pass by a young player."