FLYERS PULL OFF ONE FINAL REGULAR SEASON COMEBACK
Yesterday's regular season finale at the Wells Fargo Center had no bearing on the standings or playoff matchups, but that did not stop the Philadelphia Flyers from battling back from deficits of 4-1 and 5-4 to capture a point against the Carolina Hurricanes. The Canes won via shootout.
A pair of goals by Wayne Simmonds, including the game-tying goal in the final nine seconds of the third period, led the way for Philadelphia. The power forward finished the regular season with a career-high 29 goals. He had six multi-goal games this season.
The Flyers also got goals from Matt Read (23rd), Kimmo Timonen (6th) and Sean Couturier (13th). Claude Giroux notched his 58th assist (4th most in the NHL this season) and 86th point (3rd overall) of the season. Mark Streit had a pair of assists to finish the regular season with 44 points (16th among NHL defensemen). The Swiss defenseman posted 10 points in the final six games.
Making his NHL debut, Cal Heeter appeared to suffer from the jitters in the first 30 minutes or so of the game. He allowed four goals on the first 14 shots fired on his net -- including the first shot of the match -- of which three looked stoppable. Eric Staal scored his 20th and 21st goals of the season, while Jeff Skinner opened the scoring and Manny Malhotra scored his seventh goal of the season and second against the Flyers.
At 9:51 of the first period, Read finished off a perfect cross-ice feed by callup forward Jason Akeson to get Philly on the board. Akeson, who scored a goal in his NHL debut in the finale of the lockout shortened 2012-13 season, earned his first NHL assist on the play.
Philadelphia helped Heeter settle in with a big comeback in the second period. First, Scott Hartnell got hooked down by Ron Hainsey as the left winger drove to the net and received a pass from Jakub Voracek. The puck ended up over the goal line as Hartnell crashed into the goaltender and the net came off its moorings. The would-be goal was waved off but the Flyers got a power play at the 11:16 mark.
At the 12:00 mark of the middle stanza, Timonen dialed up a shot from the point that beat Carolina goaltender Anton Khudobin (39 saves on 44 shots) high into the net. Giroux and Voracek earned the assists. Just 10 seconds later, Simmonds brought the Flyers back within a goal, sweeping a shot past Khudobin. Tye McGinn earned his first NHL assist of the season.
Couturier, who finished the season by scoring three goals in the final four games, knotted the score at 4-4 at 15:32. The shutdown center poked the puck loose near the defensive point, gathered the disc and moved in on a breakaway. Couturier put a shift on Khudobin and slid the disc into the net for one of prettiest goals he's scored in his pro career to date.
The score remained tied until the latter stages of the third period. An unusual situation arose where the Flyers had a 4-on-3 power play for two minutes immediately followed by
a three-minute 5-on-4 disadvantage. It came about because Scott Hartnell speared Brett Bellemore, drawing a major penalty and game misconduct, and Bellemore (slashing) and Ron Hainsey (roughing) each got coincidental minor penalties.
The Flyers were unable to cash in on the power play. During the Canes ensuing power play, Heeter went behind the net to play a dump-in and puck took a weird carom off the end wall directly out in front of the net. Heeter actually managed to scramble back for an initial save on Andrei Loktionov but Skinner buried the rebound for his second goal of the game and 33rd of the season. The Canes went up 5-4 at the 15:39 mark.
Philadelphia had one final comeback left in them. With Heeter pulled for an extra attacker, Simmonds scored a goal from in close with nine-plus seconds left on the clock. The Flyers earned a point for the fourth time (3-1-1) in their final five regular season games.
After a scoreless overtime, Carolina's Eric Staal scored in the opening round of the shootout. Heeter stopped Skinner in the second round. Akeson, Giroux and Couturier were unsuccessful in their attempts, so the Canes got a bonus point to finish the season at 35-35-11.
The Flyers will take a day off from on-ice practice following three games in the final four days/nights of the regular season. They will then begin preparations in earnest for their first round playoff series against the New York Rangers. Game One will be on Thursday night at Madison Square Garden.
NOTES
* The Flyers rested Andrew MacDonald in yesterday's game. The NHL's shot-blocking champion has been mighty banged up of late, and had been logging heavy ice time in recent games. MacDonald still appeared in 82 games between the Islanders and Flyers despite missing yesterday's game. With MacDonald being held out of the finale, Kimmo Timonen (who was rested in Saturday's game in Pittsburgh) returned to the lineup.
* Nicklas Grossmann, who has been hobbling around with foot/ankle issues ever since the Flyers' home win against St. Louis, was held out of each of the final three games of the regular season after Philly clinched a playof spot in a game against Florida in which Grossmann had an assist and was fortunate enough to finish as a plus-four (balancing off a bad luck minus-three in the last game against Boston). According to Berube, Grossmann could have played if necessary in any of the final three games.
* Erik Gustafsson (20:22 of ice time, two blocks, two giveaways, even with a minus-one and plus-one) dressed for the third straight game. Hal Gill dressed in each of the final two games of the regular season.
* Steve Downie and Michael Raffl were both scratched yesterday. Akeson and Jay Rosehill dressed in the finale, along with McGinn.
* Seven Flyers ended up dressing in all 82 games of the team's regular season schedule this year: Braydon Coburn, Brayden Schenn, Sean Couturier, Wayne Simmonds, Claude Giroux, Mark Streit and Jakub Voracek. That is a new franchise record, eclipsing the six players who dressed in every regular season game of the 1974-75 campaign.
* There is no word as of this writing on whether Hartnell will face supplementary discipline from the NHL for yesterday's spearing incident in the third period. If he were to get suspension, the suspension would be served in he playoffs.
* Before the start of yesterday's game, the Flyers presented their annual team awards. The winners were as follows:
Bobby Clarke Trophy (Flyers MVP): Claude Giroux
Barry Ashbee Trophy (Best Defenseman): Kimmo Timonen
Pelle Lindbergh Memorial Award (Most Improved Player): Michael Raffl
Yanick Dupre Memorial Award (Good Guy/ Best With Media): Jakub Voracek
Gene Hart Memorial Award (Most Heart and Dedication): Steve Mason
Toyota Cup (Most Three-Star Selection Points): Claude Giroux
* The following is the Flyers first-round schedule against the Rangers. Home games are noted in italics:
Game 1: Thursday, April 17 – Flyers at Rangers, 7 PM EDT
Game 2: Sunday, April 20 – Flyers at Rangers, 12 PM EDT
Game 3: Tuesday, April 22 – Rangers at Flyers, 8 PM EDT
Game 4: Friday, April 25 – Rangers at Flyers, 7 PM EDT
Game 5 (if necessary): Sunday, April 27 – Flyers at Rangers, Noon EDT
Game 6 (if necessary): Tuesday, April 29 – Rangers at Flyers, Time TBD
Game 7 (if necessary): Wednesday, April 30 – Flyers at Rangers, Time TBD
* For family reasons, I have been in Texas during the final week of the regular season. I am returning to Philadelphia late tonight and will be covering the Flyers practices and games live for HockeyBuzz throughout their postseason run.
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PRE-PLAYOFF THOUGHTS
For several weeks, there has been a lot of hand-wringing among Flyers fans and the local media about the prospect of playing the Rangers in the first round of the playoffs if New York got the home ice advantage in the series. The Flyers have lost eight games in a row in Madison Square Garden and got swept in 2011-12 regular season series.
There were even some people who thought the Flyers should have tanked their final two regular season games against Pittsburgh and Carolina in the hopes of trying to fall to a wildcard seed and playing against the Penguins; against whom the Flyers have had their share of recent success and upset in the 2012 playoffs.
Guess what: If the Flyers had dumped the final two games in regulation, they'd have gotten the reward they would have deserved for not playing to win. With both Columbus and Detroit winning their regular season finales, the Flyers would have ended up playing the Boston Bruins in the first round.
To their credit, the members of this year's Flyers team have too much character and competitive drive to do anything less than give their best to win. There are no quitters on the team and no one who plays in fear. To me, that bodes better for their postseason chances -- regardless of opponent -- than trying to lose to avoid the Rangers in Round One.
The same team that started the year at 1-7-0 and scored only 22 goals in the first 15 games finished the year with 94 points and as a top-10 scoring team in the NHL. The Flyers displayed their character in the form of comeback ability that opened the door for a franchise-record 11 comeback wins in games the team trailed at some point in the third period.
Despite winning four of five games against Pittsburgh this season and splitting four games with the Rangers, the playoffs are a whole different animal than the regular season. Throw out the regular season numbers, because every series takes on its own personality.
There is every reason to respect the Rangers. They are a tough team to play against and they deserve to go into the series as the favorite to win. However, respect is not the same thing as fear. Playoff hockey is not for the faint of heart, and every team is tough. The Bruins are toughest of the bunch.
The biggest challenge for the Flyers against the Rangers will be to avoid giving into impatience if it takes them awhile to get a few pucks past Henrik Lundqvist.
Job number one has to be maintaining good gap control and avoiding gifted turnovers. Stop on the pucks, win the battles, keep plugging away with second and third efforts and trust in the process even if there isn't instant gratification.
Job number two is be the more opportunistic team. Too often in recent years, the Flyers have found themselves chasing the game against New York because the Rangers get on the board first by capitalizing on a bang-bang scoring chance.
Whichever team executes better will win the series. It's really as simple as that.
As far as the home ice issue goes, I know that much will be made of it over the next several days -- and right up until a road team wins for the first time in the series. I have confidence that the Flyers can get at least a split at Madison Square Garden in the first two games. However, holding serve at the Wells Fargo Center throughout the series will be every bit as big of a challenge as trying to win at least one at MSG.
I know there will be a lot of talk on the Flyers end about firing a heavy quantity of shots on Lundvist. Personally, I care much more about the quality of chances -- and getting pucks on net rather than blocked or wide -- than the quantity of shots. A simple game works better against New York, and starts with managing the puck.
Often, when the Rangers are on their game against the Flyers, Philly ends up generating a healthy number of shots. However, the Rangers give them unscreened perimeter shots all game, knowing that Lundqvist is unlikely to yield many dangerous rebounds on such shots let alone a goal on the initial shot. When it comes to chances over the middle and especially from the hash marks in, New York's defense becomes quite stingy.
When the Flyers get in trouble against the Rangers, they tend to start playing right into New York's hands. A frustrated Flyers team starts forcing low-percentage into well-covered areas. Additionally, they frequently overskate pucks and end up with players out of position.
Keep things simple, skate hard with an emphasis on back pressure and puck support on the forecheck: Those are the things the Flyers did during the height of the stretch drive when they were knocking off the playoff-bound Penguins, Blackhawks, Stars and Blues (home) and earning hard-fought points in shootout losses to the Bruins and Blues (road).
In tomorrow's blog, I will build upon these themes and take an in-depth look at five keys that are likely to swing the series one way or another.
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