Despite having to kill off eight penalties, and getting only one man advantage of their own, the Flyers handled the Minnesotta Wild on Thursday, beating one of the best defensive teams in the league 3-1.

The winning goal was scored on the powerplay by Mike Knuble, his 200th point as a member of the Flyers.

“That’s half my points over my career,” Knuble said. “It went quick. I’ve played with some great players here and that helps. With having so many good players around me there probably should be more points than that.”

The Flyers were not as good on the penalty kill during their two week road trip, but a couple days off has clearly done them some good.

“I know it’s like we’re asking for it all the time,” he said after last night’s victory. “We kind of made it hard on ourselves with the little sticks and stuff like that. We did have solid penalty killing, not so much on the road.

“But here at home we were rested and Marty [Biron] made some key saves and I don’t think we gave up too many glorious chances.”

Oddly enough, it was the penalty killing that seemed to give the team life. They started the night sluggish, but gained momentum with each penalty kill, which included 1:03 5-3. After giving up the first goal of the game to Stephane Veilleux with 7:49 left in the first period, the Flyers shut down a very frustrated Wild offense.

“Terrible, terrible,” said Wild defenseman Kim Johnsson, a former Flyer. “We gave them the game. We couldn’t even score a goal on [eight] power plays.”

Scott Hartnell tied the game up midway through the second period on a rebound of a rebound of a rebound. Both Mike Richards and Scottie Upshall tried pounding it home, but it was Hartnell that found the empty net.

Knuble put the Flyers ahead for good just six seconds into their only power play, deflecting a blue line shot by Kimmo Timmonen. Upshall would put the nail in the coffin with a burst of speed up the far side of the rink, wristing a shot above the shoulder of Minnesotta goalie Niklas Backstrum.

“The tendency is, you come home from the trip and you want to relax, and you can’t,” said Flyers coach John Stevens. “Minnesota came out and they were jumping and they were trying to take advantage of us in our building and treat it almost as an extension of the road trip.

“I thought we regrouped in the second period and the penalty killing got us on track.”

The Flyers take the ice again on Saturday against the Toronto Maple Leafs. The puck drops at 7:00 PM at the Wachovia Center.