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Flyers Breeze Past Flames, 5-3 |
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Wrapup: Flyers Breeze to 5-3 win over Calgary
The Philadelphia Flyers skated to a dominant 5-3 win over a heavy-legged Calgary Flames at the Wells Fargo Center on Sunday night. Despite yielding a pair of shorthanded goals and trailing first, the Flyers were in control most of the night. The Flames have played five games in the last eight nights and play again on Monday. It showed.
Anthony Stolarz earned the win in his NHL debut, turning back 29 of 32 shots. He previously served as a backup in a total of 26 games across the last two-plus seasons before finally getting his first NHL start.
“I think, for me, going out there and just giving the team a chance to win. I didn’t care if I gave up one, two, three, four, six, you know what I mean. Well, obviously you don’t want to give up six, but I think the biggest thing for me was just getting the win. I just want to go out there, stop the puck and do my job. The guys in front of me did theirs. They did a great job with clearing shots, blocking them. Getting a 4-1 lead kind of helps you relax a little bit," Stolarz said.
After Calgary opened the scoring on a shorthanded goal by T.J. Brodie, the Flyers struck back for a late first period tally by Michael Raffl and then broke loose for second-period goals by Jakub Voracek (power play), Chris VandeVelde and Wayne Simmonds. In the third period, the Flyers sandwiched a Roman Lyubimov tally around a Matthew Tkachuk power play goal and a late shorthanded goal by Alex Chiasson.
Chad Johnson, victimized by some bad bounces and breakdowns in front of him,played well in a losing cause. He finished with 38 saves on 43 shots. With the win, the Flyers (10-10-3) pulled back to the .500 mark on the season.
I mean the game has a funny way of… sometimes some of that stuff evens out. We haven’t had a lot of that go our way the last couple of nights," Flyers head coach Dave Hakstol said.
"Tonight was probably a little bit better performance than what we have had over the past two or three games. You got to work for everything you get, and sometimes that generates a bounce or two going your way as well. I thought we had a pretty good first period. We were playing with fire a little bit. On some of their transitions they had two or three opportunities getting up ice quick with outnumbered situations. I think we cleaned that up a little bit in the second and third period and just continued to play pretty sound hockey up and down the ice.”
Philadelphia seemed to have the better skating legs for all three periods and, eventually, the bounces starting going their way. Radko Gudas was credited with six hits and a pair of blocked shots, while Simmonds contributed three blocked shots in addition to a goal and an assist.
"We just wanted to stick with it," Simmonds said. "We knew we played good in the first period. It was a 1-1 game coming out of the first period, we thought we deserved a little bit better and just stuck with our structure and stuck with our process.”
The Giroux line established quick puck possession on the game's first shift but one point shot by Andrew MacDonald missed the net and a second got blocked. At 2:07, Ivan Provorov wristed the game's first shot on goal. Johnson bobbled the puck but covered before Dale Weise could get to it in the crease. The Flyers won the next draw, and Provorov put another shot on net.
Stolarz lost his stick near the net but no shot on goal came his way. Matt Read hit the crossbar at the other end of the ice. At 5:46, he made his first NHL save, denying a 26-foot right circle shot by Alex Chiasson. Travis Konecny, shaken up on the play, went up the tunnel under his own power.
Michael Frolik visited the sin bin for hooking Voracek at 6:24, giving the Flyers the game's first power play. The Flyers had a hard time getting organized early. The second power play unit came out with 1:13 remaining on the power play and a right circle faceoff in the Calgary zone. With 42 seconds left, Calgary scored on a shorthanded 2-on-1 counterattack. Taking a pass from Mikael Backlund, Brodie finessed a backhand shot past Stolarz for his first goal of the season. Sam Bennett got the secondary assist at 7:42. The Flyers did not score on the remaining power play time.
Stolarz bounced right back on the next several shots he faced. At 12:55, he absorbed a 40-foot blast by Dougie Hamilton. After that, he made a tough glove save on Frolik.
The Flyers went back to the power play at 13:56. Deryk Engelland got the gate for cross-checking. Johnson made an early save on a Voracek right side shot without allowing a rebound to a lurking Wayne Simmonds. Provorov generated a routine right point shot in the dying seconds of the advantage.
The Flyers tied the game at 1-1 at the 17:42 mark. Voracek took the puck around behind the net and centered it off Brodie's stick as he exited the other side. Raffl banged the puck home on the backhand from point blank range for his fourth goal of the season. MacDonald got the secondary assist.
With 45.7 seconds left, the Philly got its third straight power play at 19:46 as Matthew Tkachuk was called for holding behind the Calgary net. The Flyers took 1:46 of carryover power play time into the second period. Shots in the first period were 15-7 in the Flyers favor.
Johnson stopped a Brayden Schenn one-timer from the left hash marks and then stuffed Simmonds on a rebound try with 1:08 left in the Flyers' power play. Finally, Voracek ended his scoring drought with a lucky bounce. On an attempted cross-ice pass to Simmonds near the left post, the puck went off Mark Giordano and redirected high past a helpless Johnson at 52 seconds for Voracek's eighth goal of the season and first power play tally. Assists on the power play goal went to Claude Giroux and Wayne Simmonds as the Flyers claimed a 2-1 lead. Giroux moved past Simon Gagne for 10th place on the Flyers' all-time points list.
The Flyers, who were not flagged for an apparent offside rush, generated heavy pressure on back-to-back shifts. Johnson denied VandeVelde in close and then covered for a stoppage at 4:02 with bodies careening all around him. On the period's next shift, Raffl missed the net on a 2-on-1 feed from Giroux in good scoring position. Using a burst of speed, Konecny then led a 2-on-1 rush that required a very tough stop on Nick Cousins from point blank range.
Philadelphia continued its dominance, however. The lead was extended to 3-1 at 7:20. Johnson turned a puck over up the wall under pressure to Roman Lyubimov and VandeVelde's skate, with no kicking motion, knocked in the puck from 14 feet for his fourth goals of the season.
The lead grew to 4-1 at 7:44. Simmonds was sprung on a breakaway by a stretch pass from Cousins. Shifting to his backhand, Simmonds elevated his 11th goal of the season over Johnson's blocker. Del Zotto got the secondary assist.
Stolarz made his 10th save of the game at 8:25, calmly finding a puck in a scramble around the net. Shots for the game at this point were 24-11 in Philly's favor. Johnson continued to battle gamely, stopping Schenn from the right slot at 9:20.
The Flyers had multiple cracks at building a 5-1 lead midway through the second period but Shayne Gostisbehere and others were unable to get shots through a maze of bodies and a sprawled Chad Johnson.
Stolarz caught a ricochet off the end boards and held on for a stoppage at TV timeout with 7:07 remaining in the middle frame. At the other end of the ice, Johnson stayed with a Raffl deflection on Philadelphia's 29th shot of the game and 14th of the second period. Stolarz made his toughest save of the period at 14:43, denying Backlund from 14 feet on a bang-bang chance in front. That was followed immediately by a stop on Giordano.
The Flyers had a 3-on-2 rush go offside with 2:29 left in the period. As play resumed, Calgary gained puck possession but the Flyers broke out of the defensive zone easily. Stolarz could not find a rebound of a sharp angle shot in the waning seconds but the defense bailed him out.
Second period shots were 14-12 in the Flyers' favor; 29-19 Flyers overall.
Pushing and shoving followed a stoppage of play in the opening half minute. Matt Stajan got a penalty for a tripping infraction in the Flyers' zone moments earlier at the 29-second mark. On their fourth power play of the game, the Flyers generated early traffic and later a hit goal post by Mark Streit but were unable to extend the lead.
Stolarz fought off a shot through heavy traffic at one end for his 20th save of the game and, less than a minute later, Johnson stoned Konecny on a breakaway.
Calgary finally went to its first power play with 12:51 left in the third period (7:09 mark). Cousins was penalized for hooking, Moments earlier, without a stick, Radko Gudas landed a thumping clean hit on Garnet Hathaway in close quarters behind the Flyers' net. Stolarz came up with a Giordano shot from the left circle through a jumping screen by Backlund. However, at 8:05, Calgary cut the deficit to 4-2 as Tkachuk re-directed a shot from the doorstep up and under the crossbar. Giordano got the secondary assist on the power play goal. Stolarz had no chance at a save on this page.
Immediately after the goal, Cousins fed an open Raffl in the left slot but a sliding Johnson made a save. Philly re-claimed a three goal lead on a Lyubimov put-in of a Del Zotto high left slot shot that rebounded off Johnson's blocker. VandeVelde got the secondary assist at 9:55 on Lyubimov's second NHL goal.
With 5:22 left, Stolarz made a great save moving laterally to stop Brodie from 30 feet after a cross-ice feed from Tkachuk. At the whistle, tempers boiled over after Tkachuk gratuitously cross-checked Provorov and a multi-player scrum ensued. The Flyers got their fifth and sixth power plays. Konecny received a roughing minor and Gudas got a 10-minute misconduct while Tkachuk got a cross-checking minor, roughing double-minor and 10-minute misconduct and Dennis Wideman received a 10-minute misconduct.
The first minor passed without a goal. Twenty seconds into the second half of the advantage, Johnson plucked a Giroux shot through a Simmonds screen. The second unit came out. With 28 seconds remaining, Chiasson bagged his fourth goal of the season on a shorthanded counterattack. Dougie Hamilton and Brodie received the assists at 18:10 on Calgary's second shorthanded goal of the game.
The Flames pulled Johnson for an extra attacker but no further scoring ensued. Final shots were 43-32 in the Flyers' favor (14-13 Flyers in the third period).
Philadelphia Flyers Blogger •NHL.com • 
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