|
Wrapup: Flyers Blank Panthers 1-0 in Home Opener |
|
|
|
|
|
Two nights after getting humiliated in a 7-1 slaughter in Sunrise, FL, the Philadelphia Flyers nipped the Florida Panthers 1-0 at the Wells Fargo Center in the Flyers' home opener. The win was the first of Dave Hakstol era and pulled the Flyers' to 1-1-1 on the young season.
Making his first regular season in a Flyers uniform, Michal Neuvirth became the fifth goaltender in franchise history to notch a shutout in his starting debut. He joins the ranks of Robbie Moore, John Vanbiesbrouck, Jeff Hackett and Ray Emery.
Neuvirth's 31-save effort included 26 even strength saves and five during penalty kills. He was tested a bit in the first period, saw few difficult chances in the middle frame and then was called upon to make numerous tough saves in the final stanza to nail down the one-goal win.
“I thought I had a good pregame skate," said Neuvirth. "I think the last game helped me a lot. I was coming to the game more relaxed. I was just feeling good the whole day and the guys followed me. They did an outstanding job; so many blocked shots in front of me. Great team effort."
Neuvirth was pressed into starting service because number one goaltender Steve Mason was excused from the team to tend to a serious personal/family matter that unfolded over the weekend. On Saturday, Neuvirth relieved Mason, who yielded four goals on eight shots and looked uncharacteristically inattentive during a disastrous 6:47 stint in goal.
The Flyers' lone goal was scored by Brayden Schenn off a line rush rebound at 5:57 of the first period. Starting from their own end of the ice, Sean Couturier worked a give-and-go with Sam Gagner (making his first regular season appearance as a Flyer). With Schenn and defenseman Evgeny Medvedev going to the net, Gagner's rebound bounced to Schenn and Schenn quickly swept the puck home on the backhand.
Schenn has scored two of the Flyers' four goals through the first three games of the season. Both have come on plays where he and a teammate were in close to the net.
“We’re doing a better job of it. It’s hard to get to the net and I’m seeing that first hand. I think we have a good mentality in going to the net at times one of the things we’ve seen is having two guys on top of the blue paint and we really only want to have one guy there and another guy spread out a little bit. Our mentality is the right way, it’s just something we have to keep working on and have to keep going to those areas and get a greasy one every game," said Hakstol.
"It’s still hard to get to the net, it’s a battle to get there. Once you’re there, once you’ve got your position, it’s tougher to move you with the way the rules are, but you have big mobile bodies out there and it’s a battle to get to the top of that paint.”
Apart from Neuvirth's strong effort in net and Schenn's tally, the Flyers' penalty killers were the big standouts of the game.
Philadelphia went 6-for-6 on the penalty kill, including a four-minute kill of a Michael Raffl double-minor for high sticking early in the first period. They also generated a good shorthanded scoring opportunity with Claude Giroux and Scott Laughton on the ice.
"Not a lot different,” Hakstol said of what the team altered on the penalty kill to go from yielding three goals on Saturday to blanking Florida in the return match.
“It’s little things and it’s a game of inches sometimes. Saturday, not a lot of things went right. We were a foot or two off of two or three plays on Saturday night. Tonight, we were in pretty good position. We were pretty scrappy. I thought we did a good job. When they did have good possession and good puck movement, we did a good job keeping things to the outside and finding an area either to jump up on a rebound or finding a spot to getting a force going and get a puck down the ice.”
On the other end of special teams, the Flyers' power play had a few decent looks at the net but were unable to capitalize on three opportunities, including a 4-on-3 advantage in the middle frame.
Overall, play was fairly even in the first period. Philly controlled the middle frame. In the third period, the Flyers did a little too much defending and had several close calls where Neuvirth had to bail the team out of trouble. There was one puck that danced along the goal line with about six minutes left in the third period but it stayed out of the net.
For the game, the Flyers outshot the Panthers 33-31. Roberto Luongo (30 saves) took the hard-luck loss.
The Flyers blocked 17 shots on the night. They were led by four from Radko Gudas, who was also making his regular season Flyers debut. In 16:40 of ice time, Gudas also was credited with five hits, tying Brayden Schenn for the game-high.
The game got testy at times, with its share of after-the-whistle scrums. The frequent special teams play interrupted the flow of even strength play to some degree.
However, it should also be noted that Florida is a team that plays a very structured system. Unlike Saturday's game where the Flyers gave into frustration and tried to force the play with a lot of low-percentage gambles, Philadelphia did a better job of not playing into the Panthers' hands.
"It’s important," said Flyers right winger Jakub Voracek. "It’s only 1-0 and if you stay patient for the whole game it’s not very easy, especially in the home opener in front of your fans, you want to get some goals, you want to get an easy win, but it doesn’t happen like that anymore. It happens only two or three times a year so it’s a good learning process for us that we stayed patient for the whole 60 minutes and we won 1-0. Since last year in the beginning of the season we were lagging.”
Hakstol said before the game that he does not know when Mason will be able and ready to rejoin the team. Beyond that, he declined further comment out of respect to the goaltender. The team recalled veteran goaltender Jason LaBarbera to back up Neuvirth in the home opener.
Afterwards, the Flyers' coach said he was not surprised by the way Neuvirth stepped up against the Panthers.
“I think we said it before the game, we said it after morning skate, and we have all the confidence in the world in Neuvy. He’s done a good job for us all the way since day one, through camp, through preseason, and he went out tonight and he played a heck of game," said Hakstol.
Flyers chairman Ed Snider was not able to be in attendance at the home opener for the first time since he founded the team in 1967. The team released a statement saying that the 82-year-old Snider was in California after undergoing recent medical treatments. He was said to be otherwise doing well.
Philadelphia Flyers Blogger •NHL.com • 
Join the Discussion:
»