FLYERS CAPTURE 10th CONSECUTIVE WIN AT HOME
The Philadelphia Flyers have been winning a lot of different ways of late. On Wednesday night at the Wells Fargo Center, they didn't have to rely on comeback hockey or the fates of overtimes or shootouts. Instead, they grabbed an early lead and never looked back in a workmanline 3-1 win over the Montreal Canadiens.
The win was the 10th in a row on home ice for the Flyers. The team is now 12-7-0 at the Wells Fargo Center this season.
Sean Couturier, Zac Rinaldo and Michael Raffl scored for the Flyers. Rinaldo, who later fought Brandon Prust and was credited with four shots on goal in 4:53 of ice time, notched his first goal of the season. For Raffl, two of his three NHL goals to date have come at Montreal's expense. In perhaps his best all-around performance since the early part of the 2012 calendar year, Andrej Meszaros racked up three assists in 15:52 of ice time.
Steve Mason was calm, cool and collected in making 19 saves for the win. Mason's stops included a breakaway save on longtime Flyer Daniel Briere in the first period and a couple of good stops on Max Pacioretty.
The Flyers have been on a roll on the penalty kill of late. They have killed of 19 consecutive penalties over the last six games. Tonight, Philly went 4-for-4 on the PK. The defenders did an excellent job of denying the passing lanes and many of the Flyers' 21 blocked shots came during the penalty kill.
Couturier got the Flyers rolling at 6:27 of the first period. With Steve Downie and Vincent Lecavalier going to the net, Meszaros got a point shot through on net. Lecavalier got a stick on the puck near the crease. Couturier alertly pounced on the rebound and deposited it past Peter Budaj.
Rinaldo made it a 2-0 game at 14:39. He grabbed his own rebound of a left circle shot and backhanded a shot through the five-hole, courtesy of the puck deflecting off the stick of Montreal's Lars Eller. Luke Schenn (who also had seven hits and three blocks in 16:15 of effective ice time) and Meszaros got the helpers.
The two-goal lead held til 8:24 of the second period. Shortly after the Flyers killed off their third penalty of the game, Meszaros carried the mail up the left side and put the puck toward the net. Raffl got to the loose puck in the slot at lifted it home to make it a 3-0 lead.
The lone blemish on this game for the Flyers was the power play. The team is now 9-for-79 on PP at home (11.4%), compared to its healthy 20-for-85 (23.5%) on the road.
Philly's first power play went fine. The second unit kept the Habs hemmed in deep in their own end for the entire two minutes but just wasn't able to nab a goal.
The next power play was atrocious. The Flyers were very sloppy with the puck, turning the puck over multiple times. The final turnover was one by Downie in the neutral zone. Tomas Plekanec took a feed from Brian Gionta, skated into the slot and sniped a shot home for a shorthanded goal at 17:31 to trim the deficit to 3-1.
After the horn sounded at the end of the second period, a scrum developed in the corner behind the Habs net. Things seemed to be settling down when P.K. Subban (22:24 TOI, three shots, zero points, minus-one) threw a gloved sucker punch that drew a roughing minor to leave his team shorthanded at the start of the third period.
Canadiens coach Michel Therrien was not a happy man, even after the Canadiens killed off their third penalty of the game. Subban sat on the bench for seven-plus minutes after his penalty expired, before resuming frequent shifts in the latter part of the game.
The Flyers bottled up the neutral zone and kept a tight forward-to-D gap throughout the third period, limiting Montreal to five shots. Philly killed off a Lecavalier hooking penalty (taken at 13:08) in good shape.
With time ticking down to about 90 seconds left in the game, the Habs worked the puck deep into the Flyers' end of the ice. Therrien refused to pull Budaj for an extra attacker.
Play swung the other way and there was a stoppage of play with an upcoming faceoff in the Montreal defensive left circle. Therrien refused to take a time out.
The Canadiens won the faceoff and moved up the play. Budaj did not follow the play up the ice, heading to the bench. By this point, it was clear that the Montreal coach was waving the white flag on the game, down two goals.
Briere took a goalie interference penalty with 14 seconds left in the game. The Flyers ragged off the remaining time on the clock to skate off with their seventh straight regular season home victory against Montreal, and 10th overall including Games 1, 2, and 5 of the 2010 Eastern Conference Finals.
The Flyers are back in action on Saturday afternoon. The Tampa Bay Lightning will come to town for the 1 p.m. matinee. The next night, the Flyers are in Madison Square Garden to take on the New York Rangers.
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QUICK HITS
* After the game, this was Therrien's explanation for his refusal to pull his goaltender in the final 90 seconds and simply conceding the win to Philadelphia: "You know what? In the third period we got four shots on net. When you have momentum and you’re creating a lot of chances, there is a reason why you can take a goalie out, especially when you’re down by two goals. But when you have four shots on net and you’re down by two goals, there is no reason."
* Before the game, Flyers general manager Paul Holmgren gave an update on the status of Matt Read. The player, who was initially reported to be out day-to-day with an upper body injury and passed baseline concussion testing, has since been experiencing concussion-like symptoms. The symptoms are apparently still ongoing, so there is no timetable for a return.
* Count me among those who feels that Claude Giroux deserved a spot on Team Canada for the Olympics. I would take Giroux in a heartbeat over Jeff Carter or Rick Nash, and it has not because of the NHL uniforms they wear. I just think Giroux is the most dynamic player of the three, especially over the last seven weeks or so after a slow start.
Meanwhile, despite public insistence to the contrary, I sincerely doubt Chris Kunitz would have made the Olympic team if not for his chemistry in Pittsburgh with Sidney Crosby.
From the narrowest of prisms -- the Flyers-only standpoint -- the omission of Giroux could be a positive thing: He can focus only on his NHL team and then rest for the stretch drive while a grueling and fast-paced Olympic tourney is played overseas.
As for the motivation factor, I agree with what former Flyers player Brad Marsh argued in his blog earlier today at HockeyBuzz: Something like an Olympic snub could be an energizing emotion for a player. He was specifically referring to the Ottawa Senators' Bobby Ryan, but just as easily could have directed it toward Flyers' captain Giroux.
These are the dog days of the season for many players; still a long way from the stretch drive and playoffs but with a lot of bumps and bruises already accumulated. Players who've been selected for the Olympics have those preparations in the back of their mind. Giroux, meanwhile, has the chance to make the Olympic decision-makers such as Steve Yzerman look foolish for his omission.
The feeling of being denied something coveted is a genuine button-pusher for a proud and competitive athlete. These guys always look for any way possible to get the energy juices flowing, especially this time of the season.
* I was not surprised that Nicklas Grossmann was left off Team Sweden's roster for the Olympics. However, the SIF has taken big physical shot blocking defensemen to play for Tre Kronor in the Olympics before, ranging from Ulf Samuelsson to Mattias Norström to Douglas Murray. None of those guys were fleet skaters, either. So it was not a foregone conclusion that Grossmann would not go because "he's just not suited to the big ice and international rules".
Rather, it was a numbers game that severely worked against Grossmann. There were two far more glaring omissions on the Tre Kronor roster -- Tampa's Victor Hedman and Minnesota's Jonas Brodin -- while the squad is gambling by taking Vancouver's Alex Edler (dealing with injuries and still under IIHF suspension to start the Olympics) and Buffalo's Henrik Tallinder (likely going primarily because he played well in Sweden's gold medal winning World Championship run last year).
The Swedes figured they are getting a physical element from Niklas Kronwall (a no-brainer selection) and players like Kronwall and Niklas Hjalmarsson are good shot blockers in their own right. Even so, I think when it comes to dealing with some of the tourney's bigger forwards, Grossmann's size and strength could have helped.
Grossmann ranks 4th in the NHL with 107 blocks. He is 12th among NHL defensemen with 105 credited hits.
* Speaking of Grossmann, the big Swede banged up his forearm last night in the 3-2 overtime win in New Jersey. He missed one shift and donned a protective sleeve before going on to assist on goals in the third period and overtime. In tonight's game, he again showed some uncharacteristic offensive push early in the game. At one juncture, he also appeared to be favoring his left forearm again -- or else the sleeve slid on him -- but he missed no shifts.
* Before the game, I commented that I thought Rinaldo would make some noise in this game after being uncharacteristically disengaged from his usual style of play in Tuesday's game in New Jersey (7:52 of ice time). By making noise, I was thinking more in terms of stirring the pot with his physical play. Scoring a goal and leading the Flyers in shots through 40 minutes was not what I had expected!
* Rinaldo was in the middle of one of most genuinely funny moments in the locker room in recent years. Tim Panaccio asked him a question about the team's play now compared with early in the season and asked Rinaldo if he thought the boos affected the team's play at home back during the time when there were a lot people calling for an organizational bloodletting and a roster fire sale.
"What's that?!" Rinaldo asked, with a shocked and puzzled look on his face.
Panotch re-asked the question. Rinaldo realized he'd misunderstood the query.
"Oh! I thought you said the booze affected us!" Rinaldo said and broke into a huge smile, amidst much laughter.
* Coming off back-to-back games, the Flyers will not practice tomorrow. Practice will resume at the Skate Zone on Friday.
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