SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) -- The Philadelphia Flyers were up to the task of their first West Coast test. But they barely get a breather before their next one.

Philadelphia defeated the San Jose Sharks 3-1 Friday night behind the near-shutout goaltending of John Vanbiesbrouck and first-period goals from John LeClair and Raymond Langkow.

	The Sharks' Ronnie Stern and the Flyers' Mark Recchi tangle at center ice on Friday night in San Jose.

Now, it's on to Los Angeles.

"We passed the first test tonight," Philadelphia coach Roger Neilson said. "We'll see if we can pass the second one tomorrow in Los Angeles.

"Our guys knew this was a big game tonight," Neilson added. "It was an important game for us in the standings and also because it was against one of the better teams in the West."

Philadelphia has won five games in a row and are 7-1-1 in their last nine.

"With the kind of players we have, it was just a matter of time before we got going," Langkow said. "Everybody is feeling good right now and playing like he should. And John Vanbiesbrouck is playing really well, which really makes a difference for us."

Meanwhile, they shut down a San Jose team that had been 3-0-1 in its previous four games.

"We've seen this kind of thing happen on three or four occasions," Sharks coach Darryl Sutter said. "It tells us that we have some players who have some work to do in terms of learning how to play against top players. I'm disappointed that our best players didn't play very well tonight."

Vanbiesbrouck had a shutout until the Sharks' Alexander Korolyuk scored a wrap-around goal with just 1:26 left in the game. Vanbiesbrouck remains tied with Toronto's Curtis Joseph for the league lead in shutouts with three.

Vanbiesbrouck made 15 saves, and he outdueled San Jose's Steve Shields, who entered the game ranked first among NHL goaltenders in wins and save percentage. Shields, who stopped 29 of 32 shots, fell to 9-4-1.

"Shields has bailed us out a lot this season, and we can't keep letting him carry all the load," San Jose defenseman Jeff Norton said. "He played well enough to win tonight, but we didn't play well in front of him."

The Flyers outshot San Jose 10-3 in the first period and struck twice on goals by LeClair and Lankow.

LeClair scored his eighth goal of the season with 5:51 expired off a pass from Mark Recchi.

Lankow scored from eight feet out midway though the opening period after a Dan McGillis shot from the blue line deflected off the skate of a defender and went to Lankow, who was near the goal on the right side. It was Lankow's second of the season and came on a power play.

Philadelphia extended its lead to 3-0 in the second period on a power-play goal by Eric Lindros, his fifth goal of the season. Lindros took a pass from Lankow and scored from point-blank range at 9:10, one second after a two-man Philadelphia advantage expired.