Philadelphia, PA (Sports Network) - Kimmo Timonen had a goal and two assists as Philadelphia held off Florida, 5-3, at the Wachovia Center.

Danny Briere scored a pair of goals, while Simon Gagne and Scott Hartnell also tallied for the Flyers, who are 8-1-1 in their last 10 games. Mike Richards added two assists and Antero Niittymaki stopped 28 shots, continuing to emerge as a challenger to No. 1 goaltender Martin Biron.

Jay Bouwmeester, Rostislav Olesz and Stephen Weiss all scored for Florida, which has lost three straight, five of six and eight of its last 10 games overall. Tomas Vokoun surrendered four goals on 31 shots.

Timonen put the Flyers on the board less than three minutes in, as he worked down low in the offensive zone and, from a hard angle below the left circle, fired a wrist shot high over the shoulder of Vokoun.

Florida tied the game near the midpoint when Bouwmeester beat Niittymaki on a point-blank shot, but Philadelphia reclaimed the momentum with three unanswered goals to close out the stanza.

A power-play marker put the club back on top at 12:14, as Gagne jostled for room in front and buried a rebound just under the crossbar to make it 2-1.

Then, with the Flyers skating in a 4-on-3, Briere found room from the mid-slot and wristed a shot through traffic and past a screened Vokoun with 3:22 left.

Hartnell raised the lead to 4-1 a little more than a minute later when he banked a shot off Vokoun's skate during an odd-man rush and watched the puck trickle over the goal line.

Olesz cut it to 4-2 with 6:59 left in the second when he snagged the puck from Flyers defenseman Derian Hatcher and quickly lifted it over Niittymaki's glove.

A power-play goal then made it a 4-3 game, as Weiss beat Niittymaki stick-side while coming full speed toward the net.

The Flyers netminder buckled down in the third, while the Panthers chose to engage in a physical, if not entertaining matchup during mostly five-aside hockey.

Briere added an empty-net goal with 38 seconds left.