AT THE END of last season, Jose Theodore was the best goalie in the NHL.

At the end of last season, the Flyers were a team that could not follow up a bad effort with an all-out good one.

That was last season.

After losing for the first time Tuesday at Buffalo, in a game in which their effort was lacking, the Flyers stormed back with a 6-2 victory over Montreal last night at the First Union Center. It was the second time in 10 days the Flyers had handled the Canadiens - and Theodore - by that score.

Michal Handzus and Keith Primeau each scored two goals. Theodore, who has struggled since the start of the season, was chased from the net after being beaten for three goals in the second period. When Theodore left, he took a 4.38 goals-against average with him.

The only bad Flyers' news was the loss of Marty Murray to a groin pull in the first period. Murray got the Flyers moving, scoring the first goal of the game. Pavel Brendl, playing his most solid game as a Flyer, added a power-play goal and an even-strength assist.

"It was not a solid performance the other night,'' Primeau said of the loss in Buffalo. "We are trying to build an identity and we let one slip away. We had an opportunity to rebound and the guys were hungry.

"There's no question it's a different team. You can just see that in the approach. A loss maybe last year wouldn't have affected guys in the locker room the same way it does now. And that's a good quality. It's too tough a season, too long a season to continue to let points slide."

Since defeating Montreal at the Center in February 1999, the Flyers were 0-5-2 against the Canadiens at home entering last night's game.

So, it was a night to turn the page. After another start in which they seemed to react instead of setting the tone, the Flyers came out in the second period and took over the game.

Coach Ken Hitchcock called the slow start "debris from expectations. This is debris where sometimes you feel that problems are bigger than they are and you get overcome by looking at the problem rather than the solution. And that's how you lose your energy, that's how you lose your emotion."

Murray got the Flyers on the board 8:59 into the game. Brendl took the puck into the zone and skated wide, luring the defenseman and Theodore out of position. Then he dropped the puck back to Murray in front of an empty net. Murray took his time and made sure with a wrist shot.

Saku Koivu evened it up 2 minutes later. The Canadiens captain backed rookie defenseman Dennis Seidenberg almost all the way to the net, then cut back and shot the puck through Roman Cechmanek's legs.

The Flyers were outshot in the period, 9-6. Many of the Canadiens' chances came after they forced neutral-zone turnovers.

After another lackluster first period, Hitchcock rallied the Flyers in the locker room.

"Sometimes you get so worried that you forget to have fun and perform," he said. "We talked about it after the first period. The worst thing that could happen was we lose the hockey game.

"But let's have fun playing hard," he said he told the players. "Let's go after them and see what they're made of rather than us keep worrying that bad things are going to happen. That's what we talked about."

It must have worked, because the Flyers then took the game to Montreal.

Primeau scored his first goal of the season on a give-and-go with Justin Williams at 2:26. At 4:29, Handzus scored his first of the game with a little help from Theodore, who deflected Todd Fedoruk's shot right into Handzus' skate in front. Handzus followed up that goal with a shorthanded tally at 6:39, and it was 4-1.

Handzus, who came to the Flyers with goalie Robert Esche from Phoenix in the trade for Brian Boucher, has been a positive addition.

"He's an interesting player," Hitchcock said. "Both him and [Radovan] Somik are interesting players. They look lean, but they're very heavy players, and both of them are players that the more they play, the better they play.

"I think Handzus is a player who, because of his strength and his size and his ability, could be a 20-plus minute hockey player for us if we got down and had to play three lines. He was double-shifted [last night] and didn't miss a beat. He really feels that he's got a bite in this team right now. The [shorthanded] goal he scored was unbelievable."

Richard Zednik got a goal back for Montreal at 13:26 during a power play after Theodore was pulled and replaced by Jeff Hackett.

But just 1:57 into the third, Primeau scored his second of the game, getting his own rebound of a come-from-behind-the-net shot and banging it in for a 5-2 lead.

Brendl capped the night at 18:37 on the power play. For Brendl, who was benched in the third period in Buffalo, it was a good night. He skated 11 minutes, 20 seconds, the most ice time he has had all year.

"I think I know what I'm supposed to do now," said Brendl, whose status as a regular was questionable when the year started. "The harder I work the more I seem to play."