Wrap: Flyers Edge Oilers in OT, Win Streak at Seven
A great day on the power play, strong goaltending despite yielding four goals, and a little dose of overtime magic were just enough for the Philadelphia Flyers to stage a comeback 5-4 OT victory against the Edmonton Oilers at the Wells Fargo Center on Saturday afternoon. With the victory, the Flyers extended their winning streak to seven straight games and pulled back to statistical .500 on the season (23-23-6).
Philly scored first in the game but later trailed by scores of 3-1 and 4-2 (shorthanded goal against) before pushing back to force OT. Edmonton dominated the first period, had the better of a wide-open second period, and then got outplayed by the Flyers the rest of the way. As Flyers interim head coach Scott Gordon put it on Tuesday, "they won't all be Picassos" but the team is now finding ways to come through.
"I don’t know of you could say, earlier in the year if we went down a goal we would’ve came back and won so I think we’re kind of rolling right now. It's fun hockey and no one’s really panicking. We’re all pulling on the same side of the rope," said Flyers defenseman Shayne Gostisbehere, who returned to the lineup on Saturday from a three-game absence due to a lower-body bruise suffered on Monday.
Building on back-to-back man advantage tallies on Thursday in Boston, the Flyers long-struggling power play struck four times on five opportunities on Saturday. All of the Flyers' regulation scoring in this game came via the power play.
In regulation, team captain Claude Giroux generated a goal (power play, 16th) and two assists (39th and 40th) on Saturday. Sean Couturier (power play, 20th) had a goal and an assist (23rd). Jakub Voracek generated three assists (32nd, 33rd and 34th) on the power play. Travis Konecny (power play, 14th) got the Flyers back to within 4-3 shortly after the first unit yielded a shorthanded breakaway goal. Wayne Simmonds (power play, 16th) knotted the game at 4-4.
In OT, Nolan Patrick (10th goal) took a great feed from James van Riemsdyk (11th assist) and flipped home the game winner. In the waning seconds of regulation, Patrick had been denied from the same spot. Travis Sanheim (13th assist) got the secondary assist after missing the net on a scoring chance moments earlier before JVR claimed the puck and sent it to Patrick.
Carter Hart was beaten on two breakaways, an unstoppable Connor McDavid goal and a short-side shot under the crossbar from the left dot. However, the Flyers' rookie netminder was one of his team's best players in this game. He kept the game within reach in what otherwise could easily have been a blowout loss. Hart finished with 40 saves on 44 shots.
"They’re a fast team, we knew that coming into the game. They've got 97, probably the fastest player in the NHL. I think we really responded in the third period and came out and we took it to them in the third. We just got back to playing our game in the third period, keeping it simple, and pressuring them in their zone and generated a lot of chances. Talbs [Oilers counterpart Cam Talbot] played well out on his end as well, made some big saves there in the third. Made a huge save on that scrum at the end to get them that extra point," Hart said.
Saturday's game had special meaning for Hart, who hails from the suburban Edmonton area, grew up rooting for the Oilers and is friends with Talbot.
"Just to kind of see the guys. Cam Talbot, I skated with him all summer. Jujhar Khaira, when I was 15, he played in Everett. I got called up when I was 15 and he was the guy who was driving me around, so it was cool to see him and face off against him. My goalie coach from back home is Dustin Schwartz. He’s with the Oilers. It was good to see him. I got to see him before the game and get a chance to see a couple guys now, so it was cool to play against the team I’ve grown up watching my whole life and to get a chance to face off against them was pretty special."
For Edmonton, Ty Rattie (3rd) tied the game at 1-1 in the first period on a breakaway goal in which he was joined by McDavid. The Oilers' captain made it 2-1 as he was able to get out against the Flyers' fourth line, counterattacked and, with three defenders (Robert Hà¤gg, Radko Gudas and Phil Varone) trying to check him at the bottom of the left circle fired off a perfectly placed shot; a superstar's goal, plain and simple. The late first-period goal was McDavid's 30th of the season and sent Edmonton to the locker room with a lead (18-7 shot edge for Edmonton).
Adam Larsson made it 3-1 at 8:19 of the second period with his 2nd goal of the season (both of which have been scored against the Flyers). On the sequence, the Flyers got hemmed in their own zone. van Riemsdyk did not get out from the defensive half wall to defend Kevin Gravel on the point as McDavid sent him the puck. Flyers right winger Konecny skated across the ice to defend Gravel, which left the entire side isolated for Larsson to pinch down to the circle. Both Flyers defensemen (Sanheim and Ivan Provorov) were engaged with forwards near the net. From the left faceoff dot, Larsson measured a rising wrister that beat Hart under the short-side crossbar. Giroux scored a seeing-eye power play goal through layers of screens to narrow the gap back to 3-2.
"Carter was phenomenal in the first period and then probably the turning point of the game was that save that he made in the second period, he makes that save and that allows us to stay in the game. I think there is a belief in him, there is a belief in [Anthony Stolarz] and the way he played the other night that I think the guys have fed off on the bench. You can hear it when the guys are fired up and they’re making saves, and then I think right now the players are at a point where we were down 2-1, 3-1 and it was like I don’t want to say quiet confidence, but nobody is hanging heads," Flyers interim head coach Scott Gordon said.
"It was tough sledding for over half of the game I think we were very passive, we didn’t attack with speed coming out of our end, we were slow making plays. Then once we started, particularly in the third period we started attacking, one play comes to mind, Provy just raced down the ice and another time Jake had the puck and skated down the ice with it and there was an element of speed and all of the sudden the way they were forechecking in the neutral zone we caught them standing still. I thought in the first and second period we were just kind of waiting things out and not attacking the speed, not making the early play, and as a result we were playing to their neutral zone forecheck."
The single most pivotal juncture of the game came between the 4-minute and 4:37 mark of the third period with the Flyers on the power play. Gostisbehere turned a puck over and Zack Kassian countered on a breakaway with Ghost and Giroux in pursuit. Kassian (6th goal) beat Hart through the five-hole as he opened up to move across at 4:07.
However, just 27 seconds later, the Flyers 2nd power play unit got the goal right back. Strong work around the net by Couturier and an alert quick shovel pass from Lindblom to Konecny left Konecny with a half-open net and he made no mistake. Although the two goals offset each other, the Flyers were energized by the quick recovery.
It was the second time in the game that Konecny injected some adrenaline into his team at much-needed time. In the second period, with Edmonton in control, he followed a puck to the net. He skated through the blue paint and gave Oilers' goalie Cam Talbot a little bump just after a whistle. He got Talbot and the other Oilers roiled up, touching off a scrum. The Flyers drew some emotional energy from it and had a strong finish to the middle frame. Of course, Giroux's power play goal was the big strike that turned the tide but that little spark that Konecny provided was the first step in that direction.
Talbot (34 saves on 39 shots) played better than his stat line would suggest. He had no help on the Konecny goal sequence nor on Simmonds' rebound tally through a JVR screen off an initial Giroux shot as the Flyers tied the game at 4-4 at the 11:02 mark. Philly took the play to Edmonton late in regulation and Talbot authored several outstanding saves, including one on Patrick from point blank range in the final eight seconds. In OT, he made an arm save on a drive from Sanheim. Finally, at the 2:01 mark of OT, Patrick got another chance in prime range. He didn't miss this time.
"I have confidence back. Now, I want the puck on my stick," Patrick said, describing what has changed between his 24-game drought and his recent surge that has doubled his season goal output from five to 10 in a two-week span.
The Flyers will hold an 11:00 a.m. ET practice on Sunday at the Skate Zone in Voorhees. On Monday, the team will host the Vancouver Canucks at the Wells Fargo Center on You Can Play Night; part of the NHL's leaguewide Hockey is for Everyone initiative during the month of February.
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Phantoms Update: Lehigh Valley Drops 2-1 Decision in Hershey
One night after outdueling the host Bridgeport Sound Tigers in a high-scoring affair, the Lehigh Valley Phantoms came out on the losing side of a 2-1 verdict against the Hershey Bears at the Giant Center in Chocolate Town. The Phantoms never led in the game, trailing 2-0 by the early stages of the second period.
Carsen Twarynski (6th goal of the season) notched the lone goal for the Phantoms, scoring on a give-and-go rush with Mark Friedman (13th assist). The goal narrowed the gap to 2-1. Although the Phantoms had four power play opportunities, including a lengthy 5-on-3 late in the third period, they were unable to put any other pucks past Ilya Samsonov (21 saves on 22 shots).
For much of the night, Phantoms goaltender Branden Komm (31 saves on 33 shots) was the busier of the two goaltenders. He was beaten at 8:21 of the first period as Australian forward Nathan Walker chipped the puck home as Aaron Ness put it at the net. At 3:23 of the second period, Ryan Sproul was credited with a goal that banked in off Komm.
The Phantoms entered the game with the AHL's top-ranked penalty kill and went 5-for-5. Lehigh Valley had not yielded a single power play goal by Hershey in the entire season series to date. Saturday's game was a chippy and chirpy affair all night.
Most notably, the Bears took exception to hit delivered by Mike Vecchione to Mike Sgarbossa on the sequence that led up to the Twarynski goal. Hershey players felt that it was checking to the head, although no initial penalty was called. Scrums broke out immediately after the Twarynski goal was scored. Later in the second period, Philippe Myers uncharacteristically complained so vociferously about a call that he got tagged on a 10-minute misconduct. In the third period, Phantoms defenseman Philip Samuelsson dropped the gloves with Hershey's Beck Malenstyn.
Lehigh Valley remains paper thin up front, due to injuries and NHL recalls. The shortage is especially acute at center, where the team has had only two natural centers available to play this weekend. That is because second-year pro Mikhail Vorobyev and reigning AHL MVP Phil Varone are up with the Flyers, rookie Connor Bunnaman is currently sidelined due to injury and German Rubtsov (shoulder surgery) is lost of the season. Also missing up front are the injured Nicolas Aube-Kubel, David Kase and Cole Bardreau.
The addition of veteran forward Dale Weise, whether for a brief period (i.e., the Flyers are able to trade him before the Feb. 25 trade deadline) or for the rest of the season, was much needed for Lehigh Valley. At the AHL level, the 30-year-old is a key all-situations winger. The recent trade acquisition of Justin Bailey has provided a spark, although he was quiet in the Hershey game.
In net, Alex Lyon is sidelined by a groin pull (his third injury this season dating back to training camp with the Flyers) and Carter Hart is, of course, excelling in the NHL with the Flyers after working out some early-season kinks with the Phantoms. Anthony Stolarz is up with the Flyers as well. That is why the current tandem is 35-year-old Mike McKenna on a two-week conditioning assignment from the Phantoms and Komm, a Reading Royals callup.
On the positive side, veteran offensive defenseman standout T.J. Brennan has now rejoined the Phantoms lineup. That provides the roster with some much needed added firepower, although it does not translate to any goals on Saturday.
The Phantoms lineup on Saturday continued to have a heavy presence of Reading Royals callup players, due to the aforementioned AHL-level injuries and NHL recalls. The team dressed 11 forwards and seven defensemen against the Bears:
10 Greg Carey - 11 Steven Swavely - 22 Chris Conner 24 Carsen Twarynski - 21 Mike Vecchione - 18 Dale Weise 28 Justin Bailey - 13 Colin McDonald - 12 Tyrell Goulbourne 19 Josh MacDonald - Mike Huntebrinker
6 Philip Samuelsson - 5 Philippe Myers 43 TJ Brennan - 44 Reese Willcox 2 James de Haas - 37 Mark Friedman 7 Zach Palmquist
33 Branden Komm [56 Mike McKenna]
Combined with the Bridgeport Sound Tigers winning on Saturday, the Phantoms regulation loss dropped the team (25-17-5) back into third place in the Atlantic Division. The Phantoms are now off until Friday, when they begin a three-in-three gauntlet of weekend games as they pay a visit to the Utica Comets and then host the Hartford Wolf Pack at the PPL Center in Allentown on Saturday and Sunday.
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ALUMNI SHOWDOWN FOR SNIDER HOCKEY
The Flyers Alumni will take to the ice as part of the 2019 NHL Stadium Series weekend of events in a celebratory game with alumni from the Ed Snider Youth Hockey Foundation (Snider Hockey). The game, billed as the Alumni Showdown, will take place on Friday, February 22 at 7 p.m. at the Class of ‘23 Arena on the campus of the University of Pennsylvania.
Prior to puck drop, plans will be unveiled to extensively renovate the facility. When construction is completed, the new facility will be named the Ed Snider/ Flyers Alumni Ice Rink at the Class of ’23 Arena and will be a hub for Snider Hockey.
The Class of 1923 Rink and the University of Pennsylvania have special meaning to both the Flyers and the Snider family. The facility was the Flyers' primary training rink from the late 1960s until 1983. It was the practice day home of the Broad Street Bullies and the "Streak" team of 1979-80.
Within the Snider family, Ed was the benefactor of the Sol C. Snider Entrepreneurial Center of The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. Children Jay, Lindy and Sarena Snider respectively attended Penn as undergrads and/or graduate students.
The rink overall project is largely possible by the Flyers Alumni acting on a $2 million pledge they made to support Snider Hockey as a thank you to Mr. Snider shortly before he passed away. Additionally, the NHL and Penn have also joined the Flyers Alumni and Snider Hockey in support of this effort, which will allow Snider Hockey to expand and bring its daily youth enrichment programs to a new audience.
“The Flyers Alumni are very excited about this project at the Class of ’23 Arena,… said Flyers Alumni President, Brad Marsh. “Mr. Snider had a lasting impact on our lives, as well as the entire hockey community in Philadelphia. This pledge was made as a way to honor Mr. Snider’s legacy and continue to grow the sport of hockey.…
“The Flyers Alumni have supported Snider Hockey since our inception,… said Snider Hockey President, Scott Tharp. “This is a great example of what can be done when organizations come together in support of their community. Mr. Snider would be proud.…
The Flyers Alumni will field a roster of 35 players including former Flyers forward Scott Hartnell in his first alumni game, Danny Briere, Nick Schultz, Brian Boucher, Brad Marsh, Joe Watson and many more. Rosters for both teams will be released in the coming weeks.