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Wrap: Strong 60-Min Effort Lifts Flyers Over Leafs, 6-1 |
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Wrap: Strong 60-Minute Effort Lifts Flyers Over Leafs, 6-1
Strong goaltending early, and stellar two-way play as the game progressed, lifted the Philadelphia Flyers to an impressive 6-1 win over the Toronto Maple Leafs at the Wells Fargo Center on Tuesday night. The final score was deceptive.
Philly poured on three goals over the final 2:06 of the game to turn a hard-fought 3-1 lead into a five-goal final margin.
"It’s probably the closest 6-1 game I have ever been a part of. We stuck to it, it came out to the new system in the last two games, we adjusted, and I thought we played good team defense and our team played great and ultimately it paid off," Kevin Hayes said.
The Flyers finished their three-game season series with Toronto with a 2-0-1 record. With the victory, Philly extended its overall winning streak to five straight games. The teams is 6-0-1 over its last seven games, and has posted points in 12 of the last 14 games (9-2-3). Philly, which ended the night with the fifth-best record in the NHL, currently sits in third place in the tough Metropolitan Division. The Flyers are 7-0-4 in their last 11 home games in a streak that started October 21.
Toronto dropped to 4-2-0 since Sheldon Keefe took over for Mike Babcock as head coach. The team is fourth in the Atlantic Division (13-12-4) and 10th in the Eastern Conference.
The Maple Leafs played a good game in Philly on Tuesday night. The Flyers were just a little bit better and more relentless in all three zones after the first period. Even when Toronto scored a somewhat fluky tying goal in the third period to make it 1-1, the Flyers quickly retook control.
"I liked that when the game was on the line, it was on the line for the whole game. I think they got a little bit of momentum off their power play in the first period and had a little bit of zone time. Other than that Carter had some big saves to make in the first and that break away at the beginning of the second," Flyers head coach Alain Vigneault said.
"After that, both defensively and offensively I thought we were real good. We had many opportunities to get a 2-goal lead, but didn’t. They got a bounce to tie the game up. We kept going, playing and showed some resiliency. G scored a big goal to make it 2-1 and after that, obviously it is not a 6-1 game, but we did a lot of things the right way and that is why I think we won."
After a scoreless first period, Scott Laughton (3rd goal of the season) gave the Flyers a 1-0 lead heading into the third period. After Travis Dermott (3rd) knotted the score with a goal off a faceoff, Claude Giroux (9th) potted a goal off a no-look centering pass from Travis Konecny to quickly put the Flyers ahead again. Konecny (10th) added to the lead, then Joel Farabee (3rd) iced the win into an empty net. For good measure, Shayne Gostisbehere (3rd) and James van Riemsdyk (6th) added insult to injury.
Carter Hart was excellent in goal, denying 27 of 28 shots. Frederik Andersen took the loss, stopping 23 of 28 shots.
"He cleaned up a lot of our mistakes there early. He made some big saves. Him and Moose [Brian Elliott] have been big for us all season. It’s not just us out there. They’ve been saving some games, keeping us in some games," Gostisbehere said of Hart.
Up and down the Flyers lineup, there were strong performances on this night. All four lines contributed their share of good shifts and bounced right back from rougher ones. Ditto the three defense pairs. Taking care of their own end of the ice and then getting a forecheck established up ice were what drove the bus on this night along with Hart's play.
Shot attempts (shots + blocked shots + missed shots) were 23-15 in favor of Toronto in the first period, and then 48-24 in favor of Philadelphia over the final two periods.
"It is just fun to play now. Everyone is going right now. Everyone has found their legs. Even if one line is down for a bit, the next one picks them up and we just cycle through and keep on going. It is fun to play. Even though we gave that goal back in the third, I think we were confident that we just have to stick to our systems, and we work so hard, and getting a lot of ) zone time, but it takes a lot of effort to get that. Kudos to all the guys," Konecny said.
The Flyers went 1-for-1 on the penalty kill and 0-for-3 on the power play.
The opening 12 to 14 minutes of the game were fast-paced and pretty evenly played despite the shot attempt differentials. Toronto decidedly had the better of the latter portion of the stanza. Hart remained composed in coming up with 15 saves. Five of them alone were on John Tavares, with several from prime shooting range.
Among the Flyers' seven shots, the best chances came from Ivan Provorov from the circle, a deflection attempt by Oskar Lindblom near the net and a late-period slot follow-up shot by Morgan Frost that Frederik Andersen momentarily juggled before corralling.
The first half of the Flyers' first (and only) PK of the game was all about the Leafs getting pucks through an aggressive box and Hart making tough saves. The latter part was dominated by outstanding puck-ragging work from Kevin Hayes.
Hart made an excellent one-on-one save against Andreas Johnsson off the rush kept the game scoreless. Then Hayes' heaviness on the puck came in huge as he shook off Justin Holl and then Auston Matthews to set up Laughton at the doorstep for a 1-0 lead at 8:49 of the second period.
"I said when he first came here, I think he’s really good with the puck, fighting off guys, he’s so big and got great vision. Just try to and go to the front and put my stick on the ice and good things happen. Things have been going well for our line but the biggest thing is not to lay off and these next two games at home are key for us and then we’re on the road," Laughton said of Hayes.
The Frost line buzzed on back-to-back even strength shifts, and Shayne Gostisbehere and Sean Couturier created back-to-back power plays. The PP, unfortunately, neither scored nor built momentum. Second period shots were 8-8 but Philly had the better of the overall play.
The Flyers did a strong close-out job despite playing a forward short (Michael Raffl, lost to a broken right pinkie finger in the second period) and a rather lucky goal by Dermott that made it
1-1 at 8:38. On the play, Jason Spezza won an offensive right circle faceoff against Couturier and Dermott's rising right point shot found its way through some traffic to Hart, bouncing in the air off his shoulder and then into the net.
A mere 1:22 later, the Flyers regained the lead. Frost made a nice subtle play on the boards to keep play going north. Later, Phil Myers (three assists, +3, 17:36 TOI, 4 hits) worked the puck to Konecny behind the net. A nifty no-look centering pass to Giroux in front found the captain open in the slot and Giroux buried it.
The Giroux goal and then an Auston Matthews offensive zone interference penalty put Toronto in dire straights. The Leafs got through their third kill but, with 3:28 left, Konecny drove a dagger in their hearts. Konecny's counterattacking shot through the five-hole off a lead pass by Phil Myers made it a 3-1 game. Farabee then added an empty netter with 2:06 on the clock.
At that point, the Leafs packed it in and left Andersen to fend for himself. Gostisbehere fired home a puck (the lone assist went to Travis Sanheim) at 19:21 and an untouched van Riemsdyk stashed home a point blank goal (assists to Myers and Gostisbehere) with 27 ticks left before the final buzzer.
Raffl is expected to miss four weeks of action, according to Vigneault. The team will have to make a recall from the Lehigh Valley Phantoms and make an LTIR move. The Flyers will hold a noon practice on Wednesday at the Skate Zone in Voorhees. The next night, in the middle game of the current three-game homestand, the Flyers will face Rick Tocchet's Arizona Coyotes.
Philadelphia Flyers Blogger •NHL.com • 
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