One night after suffering the humiliation of a 9-0 drubbing at the hands of the New York Rangers, the Philadelphia Flyers earned a 4-3 win over the New York Islanders at Nassau Coliseum on Thursday night. The Flyers played a very strong opening 50 minutes but saw a 3-0 lead slip away before forging ahead again with 2:22 left in the third period.
The new line of Claude Giroux centering Oskar Lindblom and Travis Konecny accounted for three of the four Flyers' goals. A healthy scratch at Madison Square Garden on Wednesday, Lindblom responded with two goals; his first since the second game of the regular season. Giroux notched a goal and an assist. Konecny compiled three helpers. The other Flyers' goal was scored by Jakub Voracek on a one-timer off the rush.
Carter Hart is still not in peak form but he stopped 22 of 25 shots to earn the win. Semyon Varlamov (27 saves on 31 shots) took the loss for the Islanders. New York suffered their first regulation loss on home ice of the season.
For more on Thursday's game,
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The Flyers are now at the statistical midpoint of the regular season: 28 games down, 28 to go. They are three point behind the Boston Bruins for fourth place in the East Division and four points behind the Pittsburgh Penguins (with two games in hand) for third place. Right now, the biggest obstacle for the Flyers is to cut their goals against average significantly: the biggest backward step the club has collectively taken.
Below is a comparison of the Flyers through 28 games in 2019-20 and 2020-21:
Record: 16-7-5, 37 points (2019-20), 15-10-3, 33 points (2020-21)
GPG: 3.14 (2019-20), 3.25 (2020-21)
GAA: 2.64 (2019-20),
3.46 (2020-21)
PP%: 19.2% (2019-20), 19.6% (2020-21)
PK%: 85.9% (2019-20), 74.7% (2020-21)
FO%: 54.1% (2019-20), 53.1% (2020-21)
Shots: 33.0 (2019-20), 28.1% (2020-21)
Shots against: 29.3 (2019-20), 29.7 (2020-21)
Hits per game: 20.7 (2019-20), 22.6 (2020-21)
Giveaways per game: 10.3 (2019-20), 6.9 (2020-21)
Philadelphia Flyers Blogger •NHL.com • 
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