Flyers Down Avalanche, 4-3, Extend Win Streak to 10
A pair of closely spaced goals in the third period lifted the Philadelphia Flyers out of 2-2 tie and the team held on to defeat the Colorado Avalanche, 4-3, at the Pepsi Center in Denver on Wednesday night. With the victory, the Flyers extended their winning streak to 10 games; the team's first double-digit winning streak since the fall of 1985 ( Oct. 19 to Nov. 17) when the team captured a franchise record 13-game winning streak that overlapped the tragic death of defending Vezina Trophy winner Pelle Lindbergh. The current streak is tied for the third-longest franchise history.
Michael Del Zotto (fourth goal of the season), Wayne Simmonds (16th), Roman Lyubimov (third) and Brayden Schenn (ninth) scored for the Flyers. Steve Mason, earning his career-best eighth straight win, stopped 26 of 29 shots. In a losing cause, Matt Duchene scored his 11th and 12th goals of the season for Colorado, while Rene Bourque notched his ninth. Calvin Pickard stopped 21 of 25 shots to take the loss in goal.
For the third straight game, Schenn scored what proved to be the game-winning goal for Philadelphia. Schenn's goal off the rush, cutting in from the right circle and scoring on the forehand moving across gave the Flyers a 4-2 lead at 5:16 of the third period before the Avs got one back late. Taylor Leier earned his first NHL point, an assist, on the play. Andrew MacDonald received the primary helper.
Less than two minutes earlier, Roman Lyubimov put the Flyers ahead to stay as he capped off a shift that saw him apply heavy forechecking pressure behind the net. As Rene Bourque finally skated out from behind the net, Chris VandeVelde approached. Bourque fumbled the puck away, and it went directly to Lyubimov, who hammered a one-timer home to snap the 2-2 deadlock at 3:30 of the third period.
The game was scoreless in the first period as the Flyers outshot the Avs, 12-5. At 4:01 of the second period, Del Zotto joined Jakub Voracek and Claude Giroux on the rush and swatted in his own rebound to break the 0-0 deadlock.
The next two goals belonged to Colorado.
At 12:14 of the second period, after Carl Söderberg won an offensive zone right circle faceoff cleanly, linemate Bourque scored on a turn-around wist shot from well above the circle that surprised and beat Mason. It was a goal that the Philadelphia netminder would have liked to have back. At 16:34, Duchene gave Colorado a short-lived lead. The Avs won a scrum along the left side boards and Duchene stashed home the rebound of a Nikita Zadorov shot.
Simmonds re-tied the game at 16:57 of the second period. He went in alone on Pickard and, fighting a bouncing puck, scored on a forehander on a late-developing play. Radko Gudas and Travis Konecny earned the assists.
After Lyubimov put the Flyers ahead again and Schenn added some valuable insurance, Duchene made things tight with 4:45 remaining in the third period as the Flyers got a bit lackadaisical defensively and a rush turned dangerous. Duchene cashed in a Mikko Rantanen rebound to make the game 4-3.
Voracek fought Colorado captain late in the third period. The Flyers closed the door and skated off with their 10th straight win.
Flyers rookie defenseman Ivan Provorov logged 24:24 of ice time. giving him his second consecutive game of 24-plus minutes played. Provorov had two shots, four total attempts, two blocks, a hit and a giveaway. Fellow Flyers defenseman Brandon Manning led the Flyers with four shots, all of which were in the first period. He also led the Flyers with seven total shot attempts. ********************
Phantoms Win a Wild One
The Lehigh Valley Phantoms coughed up the 4-1 lead they took into the first intermission as the Bridgeport Sound Tigers pushed back in the second period to forge a 5-5 tie. The Flyers' AHL farm team pulled away again in the third period to skate off with an 8-6 victory at the PPL Center on Wednesday night.
Rookie defenseman Travis Sanheim scored twice for the Phantoms in the first period; he now has three goals over the past week. Greg Carey, Cole Bardreau, Mark Zengerle (three points), Radel Fazleev, Chris Conner and T.J. Brennan also scored for the Phantoms. Alex Lyon hung in to make 30 saves on 36 shots to receive the win in goal.
The Phantoms (18-7-1) are tied with the Wilkes Barre/Scranton Penguins atop the AHL's Atlantic Division with 37 points. However, the Pens have a game in hand.