Wrap: Early Surge, Late Comeback Highlight 5-4 SOL to Canucks
A dominant first period and a late two-goal comeback were just enough for the Philadelphia Flyers to skate off with one point from a 5-4 (2-0) shootout loss to the Vancouver Canucks at the Wells Fargo Center on Friday evening.
Joel Farabee notched a goal (1st) and an assist for the Flyers, who also received tallies from Cam Atkinson (1st), Travis Konecny (power play, 1st) and Claude Giroux (1st). Sean Couturier had a pair of assists, as did Keith Yandle and Ryan Ellis. Ivan Provorov chipped in one helper.
For Vancouver, J.T. Miller (one goal, two assists, shootout goal) and Elias Pettersson (one power olay goal, one assist, shootout winning goal) led the attack. Alex Chiasson (5-on-3 power play goal, one assist) also had a multi-point game. Vasily Pozkoldin sniped an early second period goal that started the Canucks' four-goal onslaught. Tyler Myers, Oliver Ekman-Larsson, Conor Garland and Quinn Hughes added one assist apiece for the game.
Carter Hart had an uneven performance. He was scarcely tested in the first period. Amid a four-goal second period by Vancouver -- a continuation of a problem last season with crooked-number goal periods by Flyers' opponents -- there were two that were not on the Philadelphia goalie. There was a fluky goal that took a strange carom off the boards and leaked in off the netminder. The real killer was a misplay on the fourth goal with Hart being unaware of where the puck was and coming off the post. That goal torpedoed the Flyers' momentum after the Atkinson goal. Philly didn't recover until late in the third period.
On the other hand, Hart got better and better as the third period progressed. He was downright excellent in a lopsided overtime where the Flyers spent about three-and-a-half of the five minutes playing defense. In the shootout, Hart was opened up and beaten five-hole by Pettersson and then outmaneuvered by Miller in going 0-for-2.
Vancouver's Thatcher Demko did his best work in the first period. Philly easily could have led 3-0 at the first intermission but, instead, he limited the Flyers to a single goal. In the shootout, Demko denied Couturier and Giroux. Giroux's attempt was similar to Miller's but the Flyers captain couldn't quite pull off his final move to tuck the puck into the net.
An aggressive two-man forecheck by the Flyers flummoxed the Canucks in the first period. The Flyers out-hit (15-9), out-skated, out-chanced (11-4 in scoring chances, including a 5-2 high-danger edge), and out-worked Vancouver to control the territorial play and 50-battles. However, the Flyers only skated off to intermission with a 1-0 lead on a Farabee goal that pinballed into the net. The goal was scored moments after the expiration of a Flyers power play.
The Canucks pairing of Ekman-Larsson and Myers solved the Flyers forecheck to start the breakout that led up to Pozkoldin roofing a perfect high-glove shot from the right dot off the rush. The Flyers were their own worst enemies as they proceeded to get themselves into penalty trouble. A Konecny high-sticking penalty was converted into Pettersson's carom PPG. Then the Flyers put themselves down on a 5-on-3 with self-inflicted wounds: a Provorov delay of game penalty for flipping the puck over the glass from the defensive zone and then a too-many-men-on-the-ice penalty. Hart made an initial save on a chance for Chiasson but the Canucks forward followed it up to force the puck over the goal line.
Atkinson's goal off a centering feed from Joel Farabee got Philly back within 3-2 and started a counter-push from the Flyers. A 2-on-1 rush followed shortly thereafter for Scott Laughton and Oskar Lindblom but missed connections. All the air went out of the Flyers' balloon on the Miller goal off the Hart misplay. The second period ended with the Flyers unable to touch up on a lengthy delayed penalty on the debuting Max Willman. Vancouver started the third period with a full two-minute power play.
There was a hangover effect in the third period. The Canucks dictated the play for most of the first 15 minutes, with very little pushback from Philly. The Flyers couldn't generate many positive possession shifts much less scoring chance. Finally, at 17:36, a careless high-sticking penalty by Ekman-Larsson on Konency -- too obvious to let slide -- opened the door to a 6-on-4 power play for the Flyers with Hart pulled. It resulted in Konecny scoring a PPG from the right slot. A slap pass from Yandle to Couturier down low then made it's way to Konecny in scoring range.
The 6-on-5 goal for the Flyers that followed to tie the game felt almost inevitable. Giroux did the honors, scoring from a tight angle to the left of the goal post. Couturier assisted on both the Konecny and Giroux tallies.
Other than one outstanding rush by Atkinson, who parted the seas and fired a backhander on Demko -- it would have brought the house down had he scored -- the overtime was dominated by Vancouver. Hart had to make six saves with many of them of the difficult variety including stopping the deadly Pettersson one-on-one. The Flyers were lucky to get the game to a shootout but Vancouver made quick work of the skills competition.
Final takeaways from the opener.
POSITIVES
* Ryan Ellis made a strong all-around debut as a Flyer. His pairing with Ivan Provorov continued to build on the instant chemistry it showed in training camp.
* Atkinson not only scored his first Flyers goal -- and nearly another in OT -- but he triggered a shorthanded scoring chance as well in the second period before the Flyers took the too-many-men penalty.
* The excellent first period was exactly the type of start the Flyers wanted and needed.
* Hart bounced back in the third period and overtime from the second period fiasco.
* The power play had a good night although it only officially connected once since play had just gone back to 5-on-5 on the Farabee goal. Yandle is still a very good point man on a PP1 unit and the second unit also generated entries and puck movenent.
NEGATIVES
* The penalty kill, who ranked 30th last year and struggled this preseason, inspired no confidence in the opener. Additionally, to put yourself down two men on automatic penalties is not a very good formula.
* Hart's performance, as mentioned above, was all over the map. The fourth Vancouver goal had a carryover effect that nearly carried the rest of the game except that Ekman-Larsson's bad penalty late in the third period gave the Flyers life.
* Over the 65 minutes of play, only the first period could be accurately said to have been where the Flyers were the better team.
* Until the late Konecny and Giroux goals, the Flyers needed more out of their top line from the second period until the waning minutes of the third. They delivered in the end but they were still outplayed overall by the top Vancouver forwards.
For highlights and more from Friday, see the
Postgame 5 on the Flyers' official site.
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Phantoms Open Regular Season in Wilkes-Barre
Ian Laperriere will make his regular season head coaching debut this evening when the Lehigh Valley Phantoms pay a visit to the Wilkes-Barre Scranton Penguins. Game time is 6:00 p.m. ET (yes, 6 not 7) at Mohegan Sun Arena at Casey Plaza. The game will be streamed on AHL-TV.
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Monster Game for Desnoyers
Flyers prospect Elliot Desnoyers churned out a dominant performance for the Halifax Mooseheads in a 6-4 win over Shawnigan on Friday evening. Desnoyers directly figured in five of his teams goals, scoring once on a nifty give-and-go play and assisting on four others. Highlights and stats
are available here.
Philadelphia Flyers Blogger •NHL.com • 
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