FLYERS, MASON SLAM DOOR ON CANUCKS, 2-0
Making his first start in 10 days, Philadelphia Flyers goaltender Steve Mason cranked out a 36-save gem and got just enough enough goal support as the team downed the Vancouver Canucks, 2-0, at the Wells Fargo Center on Thursday night.
A first-period deflection goal scored by Michael Raffl as a power play expired held up until a rebound tally by Sean Couturier added some insurance late in the third period. Canucks netminder Jacob Markström stopped 29 of 31 shots in a losing cause.
With the win, the Flyers improved their record to 14-12-6. The team is 7-2-1 over the past 10 games and has points in 12 of the last 16 games (9-4-3). The regulation loss dropped Vancouver to 11-14-8. The Canucks have won just two of their last 10 games (2-6-2).
“Every game is huge for us. Points are big right now. We’ve been playing very well over the past 10 games and we just try to keep that going," Raffl said to attending reporters after the game.
Three would-be goals -- two by Philadelphia and one by Vancouver, went to the Situation Room in Toronto for video review. Two of the final rulings turned out in the Flyers' favor.
Play continued for an additional 22 seconds after Raffl's goal went off the camera mounted inside the net and the puck very quickly rebounded out into the crease. Finally, the horn sounded to halt play, indicating the replay officials in Toronto wanted to review the deflection sequence. A goal was awarded and the game clock reverted to the time of the goal.
At 5:23 of the second period, the Flyers had a goal review go against them. Philadelphia captain Claude Giroux fired a shot from the circle that beat Markström but hit the crossbar and stayed out of thet.
Mason and the Flyers were fortunate to hold onto the shutout and their 1-0 lead at the conclusion of the second period. Radim Vrbata's power play point blast through traffic beat Mason over the glove and went into the net. However, the play clock clearly hit 0.0 seconds while the puck was still in flight on its path to the net.
The Flyers' netminder, who brought an even strength save percentage north of 92 percent but a penalty killing save percentage of only 75 percent into the game, was both good and lucky on a highlight-reel save on Alexander Edler with the Canucks on the power play at 17:58 of the middle frame. A rebound of an Alexandre Burrows shot from the right slot -- itself a good scoring chance -- went directly to Edler in point blank range on the opposite side of the net. Mason made a quick lateral push off and got just enough of the puck off the heel of his outstretched catching glove to make the save.
"I just tried to play the net drive there or a pass down low. He made a nice pass there and if you keep your eyes on the puck that’s a desperation save you might make once every 30 times, but that’s why you make the extra effort. Sometimes you make them. It was a big save at the time, those are the kind of saves that we need," Mason said.
The 10-bell stop on Edler was in equal parts extraordinary and lucky.
"I like to think it's talent," Mason said with a big smile, eliciting laughter before turned serious. "[Edler's] got to put that in. in a situation like that I think they are better off putting it right along the ice because a goalies first instinct is to take away the diving space, and it was lucky that the glove was in the right spot there."
Mason's excellent tracking and fast reflex reaction gave him a chance for what otherwise would have been an impossible save no matter where Edler shot it. On the flip side, the shooter still had plenty of net but happened to put the puck directly where Mason could reach it. In the end, the goalie made his own good luck in this instance.
Preserving one-goal leads in the third period has been a trouble spot for the Flyers this season. They've rescued some games after regulation, but closing out games within regulation was an area of needed improvement. The Flyers held the Canucks to eight shots in the third period, most of which were kept to the perimeter with Mason's line of sight unimpeded.
"That was just instinctive within the group. I thought the 3rd period tonight was probably our best period. We knew they would have a big push, especially at the drop of the puck in the 1st period. We were back on our heels for the 1st 10 minutes of the game. Mase was our best player through that stretch. We slowly evened things out and I thought we had a good third period," Flyers head coach Dave Hakstol said in his postgame press conference.
The shutout was Mason's second of the season, ninth as a Flyer and 28th of his NHL career. Mason also had a regulation shutout this season in a 1-0 overtime loss to San Jose decided on an unsaveable 2-on-1 line rush goal in overtime.
"I think I’d still like to feel a little bit more comfortable, and that will come with continued hard work," Mason said. "You build off of big saves, you know that one on the penalty kill and there were a couple others throughout the second period that built some momentum from a personal standpoint. You kind of just roll with the punches and keep moving along."
While Michal Neuvirth has been spectacular in goal this season for Philadelphia this season, Mason has the one who has played into tougher puck luck. Mason has been the one more frequently victimized by unstoppable goals on defensive breakdowns and numerous goals that deflected off teammates or off multiple players.
Giroux alluded to it after the game when asked about Mason overcoming his struggles to win games at home (the exact opposite frustration from last season, when he racked up the home wins but couldn't buy a win on the road) since October.
“I don’t know if he struggled. I think we have to play better in front and I think tonight we kind of played a team effort and he made some pretty amazing saves," Giroux said.
The Flyers' early-game team effort was not as good as Vancouver's. The Canucks racked up a 12-4 shot advantage through the game's first 13:32. Mason singlehandedly kept the game scoreless.
"Those 12 shots came early in the period, and I don’t think it’s ideal to have some of the quality chances against that we gave up in that 1st 10 minutes, but he was up to that task, and he got himself into a good rhythm," Hakstol said. "Whether it was because of that or not, it looked to me like tonight was a night where it didn’t matter the number of pucks going at him. He was focused and in a good rhythm."
Giroux may have finished the game without a point, but the captain had a major hand in the team's turnaround from the sluggish start. The Flyers started to turn the momentum of the game when Giroux helped stabilize the flow of play and other lines followed suit. For example, Giroux made strong plays to create a pair of power play opportunies. Raffl's game-winning goal was not officially a power play marker but that was simply a matter of statistical record keeping and not of in-game function and momentum.
Giroux, one of the top faceoff men in the NHL, went 12-for-20 on draws during the game. He distributed the puck well and also snapped four shots on goal, coming within a fraction of an inch from scoring in the second period.
"Those are big plays that can change the momentum of a game," Hakstol sad. I thought we leveled out our play for a few minutes before we got on the power play. Drawing those power plays and being able to score the goal was great. The 1st goal of this hockey game was a big one. Drawing those power plays, as well as scoring [right after one] of the power plays, was a big part of the game."
With 3:15 remaining in the first period, Raffl gave the Flyers a 1-0 lead. Evgeny Medvedev blasted an accurate shot on goal from the right point, which Raffl tipped in directly in front of the net. The puck hit the in-net camera, striking with a thud rather than the distinctive ping of a puck hitting a goal post or crossbar, and exited the net in the blink of an eye. Matt Read seemingly had a tap-in even if the puck had gone off a post but was harrassed enough to send the puck wide. Play continued until the horn finally sounded with the puck just inside the Flyers' defensive zone.
"I had no clue [I scored]; I thought Reader was going to put the rebound in," Raffl said to reporters after the game. "I was kind of celebrating already. Felt kind of nice when the horn came on I kind of knew it might be in.”
The goal was only Raffl's fourth of the season but his third in the last six games. Medvedev and Read received the assists.
Mason had to be sharp to protect the one-goal lead in an eventful second period that saw the two teams combine for 28 shots (16 for the Canucks, 12 for the Flyers). Even apart from the save on Edler that will make highlight reels throughout the season, Mason's tracking and recoveries were outstanding. At the other end of the ice, Markström was equally sharp.
In the third period, the Flyers tightened up their defensive play. Philly made zone entries difficult for the Canucks as it was the Flyers who took away time and space. When the Canucks did manage more than a one-and-done foray, the Flyers kept the play to the perimeter and cleared the traffic in front.
Finally, at 17:10 of the third period, the Flyers got a little breathing room. Simmonds worked a give-and-go with Voracek. Markström made a difficult save on Simmonds' shot from the left circle but Couturier got himself to the net to stash home the rebound from near the right post.
The goal was Couturier's fifth of the season. He has tallies in back-to-back games for the second time this season, and has contributed four goals and seven points in the team's last nine games. Simmonds and Voracek received their respective 10th and 18th assists of the season.
The Canucks pulled Markström for an extra attacker at the first opportunity but the Flyers were able to preserve the shutout. Final shot totals were 36-31 in the Canucks' favor. Final shot attempts were 65-61 in favor of the Canucks. The Flyers had 14 attempts blocked and missed the net 16 times. Vancouver got 19 attempts blocked and missed the net 10 times.
POSTGAME NOTES
* The Canucks lost team captain Henrik Sedin to a lower-body injury early in the second period. He did not return to the ice after his ninth shift of the game.
* Giroux, who has taken several recent maintenance days to rest an unspecified ailment but has played in every game this season, dressed in his 243rd game as Flyers captain. He passed Mike Richards for fifth on the Flyers' captaincy longevity list. Next up is Ed van Impe at 311 games.
* Like most of the Flyers' centers other than Giroux, Couturier has struggled on faceoffs especially of late. However, he enjoyed a strong night in that department on Thursday. Couturier won 16 of 26 faceoffs (62 percent) against the Canucks. For the season, Couturier is 45.2 percent on the draw.
* Michael Del Zotto logged 25:30 of ice time, getting credited with five hits, a pair of blocks and one shot on goal in five attempts (three were blocked, one missed the net). Radko Gudas skated 21:18, registering five credited hits, one block and four shots on goal in six attempts (two misses). Evgeny Medvedev's point shot was a key element of the Raffl goal and he was plus-two at even strength on 19:24 of ice time. However, the Russian back was also charged with a game-high three giveaways. Brandon Manning was credited with a game-high four blocks in 16:03 of ice time. Shayne Gostisbehere skated 16:16 of ice time, putting one of five shot attempts (three blocked attempts, one miss) on net.
* Nick Schultz is nine games away from hitting the coveted 1,000-game mark in the NHL. He skated 18:47 in this game, and was credited with two blocked shots.
* The Flyers have two games remaining before a lengthy holiday break that will see the team have five idle nights on the schedule overlapping the leaguewide Christmas break. On Saturday, the Flyers have a road game against the Columbus Blue Jackets. On Tuesday, the St. Louis Blues pay their lone visit of the season to the Wells Fargo Center. After the break, the Flyers embark on a three-game California road trip that will conclude the calendar year and take them into January.
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MELTZER'S MUSINGS: GOALIE CONTROVERSY MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING
Judging by the reaction of a segment of Flyers fans and some of the more alarmist members of the media, one would have thought that Steve Mason had been abducted by a mad scientist, shruken five inches in height and biomorphed into Stephane Beauregard.
Apparently, some bumps in the road over a small sample size this season far overshadowed two-plus years of consistently good play (despite frequently anemic goal support early in 2013-14 and for much of the 2014-15 season to present). In reality, the majority of Mason's 19 starts this season have been just fine and several have been stellar.
Mason had one outright six-minute disaster (with a context to it that was understable after the fact), a smattering of starts where he struggled with tracking and one start apiece against Washington and Ottawa where horrific defensive play in front of him made the netminder's stat line look far worse than his actual play. The majority of the time when he's failed to win, he's given the team a chance to win.
The reality: The main thing that's been "wrong" with Mason this season is that Michal Neuvirth has been red-hot whenever healthy this season and has been playing arguably the best sustained stretch in his NHL career. When Neuvirth has had a couple of runs of multiple consecutive starts, he's played great.
Only in Philadelphia would having two starter-caliber goaltenders capable of brilliant runs be considered a problem. After arguably the best training camp and preseason of his career, Mason took some time to find a regular season rhythm while dealing with a difficult personal situation and then a bout with food poisoning/flu. From mid-November to early December, he rattled off a series of strong starts, including a road shutout of the Rangers and a regulation shutout against San Jose. Then he had a couple hiccups in back-to-back starts and Neuvirth ran with the ball for the next week.
Neuvirth earned three straight starts on merit. Tuesday's game against Carolina wasn't an example Neuvirth's A game but he did what he needed to do: make enough saves when needed to give the Flyers a chance to win, which they did in overtime. Even so, Thursday was a good time to get Mason back out there with three games remaining until the team's lengthy schedule break during Christmas week.
If there has been one area over the last season-plus where Mason can be genuinely said to need improvement, it's in making more tough saves when the Flyers are on the penalty kill. Mason's five-on-five play -- he led the entire NHL in even-strength save percentage last season, and was above 92 percent for this season even before shutting out the Canucks to improve to 93 percent -- was fine. However, he had allowed goals on one out of every four opposing power play shots on average this season; a bottom-line number that Mason himself has said he knows needs improvement and was also far lower than he wanted (.845) even last season.
Playing against the Canucks on Thursday, Mason went 7-for-7 in making saves on Flyers' penalty kills. But was it really all
that different? In reality, no.
Hockey is a game of fractions of inches and split seconds. Would Mason have been to blame if Alex Edler's shot had been even slightly better placed? Of course not. Meanwhile, if there had been even one-tenth of a second left on the clock when Radim Vrbata's point shot went into the net through a heavy and accidental screen in front by Flyers defenseman Radko Gudas, would Mason have been blamed by some for a "soft" goal at the worst possible time? Probably.
One half of an inch and one-tenth of a second were the difference between Mason having a 100 percent save percentage on Flyers PKs in Thursday's game, and a 75 percent (6-for-8) night. One half of an inch and one-tenth of a second were the difference between the Flyers taking a lead to the second intermission or trailing 2-1.
One half of an inch and one tenth of a second were the difference between news stories about Mason's "big bounceback" and, potentially, ones second-guessing why Neuvirth didn't get the start. That's the life a goaltender, and the reason why goalies themselves need to have very short memories and everyone who does not play goal needs to do the exact opposite and take a big-picture outlook.
The big picture for the Flyers is that they need to be able turn to either of their goaltenders with equal confidence. With the current tandem, they can do just that, especially when there is some healthy competition for the two goalies to push one another to play at the top of their respective games.
No goaltender is ever happy to sit out games. Mason and Neuvirth are no exception. They support one another as teammates but they also compete for playing time. It's a delicate balance but an important one.
In terms of individual strengths and weaknesses, no goalie is perfect and none are immune to the elements of the game that are beyond their control. Neuvirth has outplayed Mason thus far, but the margin really isn't all that substantial despite statistical appearances. Even at this point of the season, the sample sizes are small enough that the numbers are somewhat volatile.
That's why a goalie's body of work over a longer but still semi-recent time frame -- not just the last game, the last week or even a given month -- is a better way to look at their respective capabilities. Both Mason and Neuvirth give the team a chance to win on any given night. Both have some injury concerns, and hoping that they stay healthy is a bigger concern than worrying whether either one will bounce back from a given bad goal, a mini-slump or a periodic stretch where the other goalie starts multiple consecutive games.
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Bringing the Decades Together: Flyers Alumni to Play in Reading
In celebration of nearly a half-century of Flyers hockey, the Flyers Alumni Association is bringing together players representing every decade of franchise history for a special Orange vs. Black intrasquad Alumni game on Feb. 5, 2016 at 7 p.m. ET. The game will be held at the Santander Arena in Reading, PA, home of the Philadelphia Flyers' ECHL affiliate, the Reading Royals.
Confirmed participants to date include the legendary Bob Clarke, Danny Briere, Kimmo Timonen, Flyers Hall of Fame inductees Brian Propp and Joe Watson, Bill Clement, Bob "the Hound" Kelly, Paul Holmgren, Dave Poulin, Brad Marsh and Joe Watson. Full rosters of the Alumni will be announced at a later date.
Tickets for the Alumni game start at $12 and are on sale now. For more information on the game,
click here.
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