There are some games over the course of the season in which tactical play gives way to sheer emotion. Yesterday's wildly entertaining Flyers-Bruins war of a hockey game was one such game. In a match with playoff-like intensity, the injury-depleted Flyers dug deep and showed tremendous will.
Boston entered the game as the NHL's best team at even strength with a remarkable +56 goal differential (+52 at 5-on-5 on 114 goals for versus 62 goals against and +4 at 4-on-4 on 5 GF versus 1 GA). They added another plus-two to that yesterday, outscoring the Flyers by a 4-2 margin.
However, the Flyers made hay on special teams. Philly went 3-for-8 on the power play and 4-for-5 on the penalty kill (including a successful 5-on-3 kill). As a result, Philly was able to salvage a hard-fought point from a game they trailed 1-0, 3-1 and 5-4 but also led 4-3 at the second intermission.
With his dad Bill Hartnell and numerous other Flyers' fathers in attendance yesterday, Scott Hartnell willed the team to a monster second period by scoring a natural hat trick. It was the Flyers' first natural hat trick to be scored entirely in one period since a rookie Mikael Renberg managed the feat in a game in San Jose on Feb. 15, 1994. The Flyers' last natural hat trick of any kind was achieved by Jeff Carter last season (Nov. 11, 2010).
Max Talbot also generated a pair of goals yesterday to break out of a month-long goal drought. He tallied his 11th goal of the season by collecting a Dennis Seidenberg turnover and, on an attempted cross-ice pass to Jakub Voracek, benefiting from a fortunate deflection off the Boston defenseman into the net.
Midway through the third period, Talbot (pressed into some power play duty) tipped a Matt Carle shot past Tim Thomas for his 11th goal of the season. The second Talbot goal sent the game to overtime.
If it seemed like Claude Giroux was always on the ice yesterday, it's because he was. Although his goal scoring frustrations continued (minus a shootout goal), Giroux did a lot of things right in his 27:53 of ice time. Most importantly, he generated three assists and won 18 of 30 faceoffs. He has been 54 percent or better on draws in eight consecutive games and the All-Star center is now 52.5 percent on the season, tops on the team.
Philly dressed eight rookies in yesterday's lineup, and most of them were strong contributors. In particular Brayden Schenn played a game reminiscent of Mike Richards at his best. He was a monster in puck battles along the walls, was extremely physical (six hits, including a highlight reel open ice hit), had his first NHL fight and seemed close to scoring his third goal of the season.Schenn did everything but get on the scoreboard.
In the absence of Danny Briere (concussion), Jaromir Jagr (groin pull) and James van Riemsdyk (concussion), the Flyers had to trade off skill for added muscle and snarl. It worked out well yesterday in dealing with the Bruins' physicality. Philly outhit Boston by a 39 to 24 margin. Boston, which is typically the most physical team in the NHL, didn't like it too much when the other side hit back.
Much of the Boston ire was focused on Tom Sestito, who did a fine job of causing the Bruins to lose their discipline when he was on the ice. Sestito racked up six hits in just 8:36 of ice time, including a controversial one that knocked Nathan Horton out of the game (suspected concussion). On his first shift of the game, he goaded Milan Lucic into a fight -- a five-minute trade off Philly will take 100 times out of 100.
As for the goaltending, Ilya Bryzgalov battled hard and made his share of tough stops, but this was a tough game on both goalies. There were two potentially stoppable shots that got past Bryz yesterday -- Lucic's goal from the high slot was not one of them -- but the competitiveness was there.
The two Boston goals that I thought Bryzgalov had a chance to stop were both scored from close in. The first was Tyler Seguin's chip shot over the goalie's glove from the near the short-side post. It wasn't an easy save but it was a makeable one. The other one was Gregory Campbell's wraparound goal that gave Boston a 5-4 lead in the third period. That one just looked ugly as the netminder was never able to get set.
As for the shootout, well, win or lose I detest the glorified skills competition. Bryzgalov is now 0-for-5 in attempting to stop shootout attempts. Prior to this season, though, he had not done so badly. Working backwards from last season, here's a look at how Bryzgalov has fared in shootout (and penalty shot) situations:
2010-11: 32 shootout attempts plus 3 penalty shots, 11 GA (.685 SV%)
2009-10: 62 shootout attempts plus 2 penalty shots, 17 GA (.806 SV%)
2008-09: 20 shootout attempts and 0 penalty shots, 10 GA (.500 SV%)
2007-08: 29 shootout attempts plus 1 penalty shots, 9 GA (.700 SV%)
2006-07: 13 shootout attempts and 0 penalty shots, 6 GA (.538 SV%)
2005-06: 0 shootout attempts plus 2 penalty shots, 1 GA (.500 SV%)
Yesterday, the Bruins twice exploited Bryzgalov's sometimes suspect lateral movement -- he is less naturally athletic and flexible than Sergei Bobrovsky. The Flyers' attempts by Matt Read and Wayne Simmonds were pretty weak. Thomas had no chance to stop Giroux nifty backhander under the crossbar on the Flyers' second shot.
**********
I am not one to routinely criticize NHL officials. They have an extremely difficult job to do, and it is up to the players to simply play through the occasional bad call or erroneous whistle.
That said, yesterday's crew of referees Chris Rooney and Dan O'Halloran and linesmen Brian Murphy and Brad Kovachik had a rough, rough game. The refs in particular were brutal in their calls and non-calls as well as losing sight of the puck around the net and blowing play dead when the puck was loose all along. Meanwhile, the linesmen blew a couple of icing rulings.
Any officiating crew would have had its hands full yesterday, and the breaks evened out to some degree after being lopsided in Boston's favor early. But if Messrs. Rooney and O'Halloran were NHL players, they'd have worked their way onto the healthy scratch list after their performances yesterday.
The non-call that was most irksome from my perspective was the blatant interference with Braydon Coburn by Nathan Horton near the Philadelphia blueline on the sequence that led to Lucic's goal seconds later. The illegal pick that Horton set -- with both officials looking on impassively -- created the space that Lucic needed to skate in and fire a tracer, using Kimmo Timonen as a partial screen.
That non-call was more blatant than a couple of subsequent interference calls that went against Boston for far more marginal offenses.
**********
Please visit our sponsor
HockeyTickets.ca.
Use coupon code "FlyersBuzz" between now and the end of the regular season to receive a 10% discount on all ticket orders over $150 and also have a chance to win two free lower-level seats to a Flyers regular season game of your choice at the Wells Fargo Center.
KINDLE USERS: Please sign up for Flyers Buzz. For more information click here.
Philadelphia Flyers Blogger •NHL.com • 
Join the Discussion:
»