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Wrapup: Flyers Defeat Rangers, 4-3 |
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Wrap: Flyers Defeat Rangers, 4-3
A three-point, strong all-around performance by Flyers team captain Claude Giroux spurred Philadelphia to a much-needed 4-3 victory over the New York Rangers at the Wells Fargo Center on Wednesday night. Giroux also playing in his 903rd career regular season game, tying Hockey Hall of Fame left winger for second on the franchise's all-time games played list.
Both teams were missing a slew of key players from the lineup. The Flyers remained without Jakub Voracek, Scott Laughton, Oskar Lindblom, and Travis Konecny -- all of whom are still in the NHL's Covid-19 protocol, although Voracek could exit on Thursday -- as well as defenseman Justin Braun, who just exited protocol and skated for the first time earlier in the day.
New York was without its best forward, Artemi Panarin (personal leave). Also missing up front were forwards Kaapo Kakko (COVID-19 protocol) and Filip Chytil (IR). On the blueline, K'Andre Miller was added to the NHL's COVID-19 protocol list earlier in the day, which put Jack Johnson into the starting lineup. The Rangers are already without Jacob Trouba for four to six weeks.
The Flyers were the better team on this night at 5-on-5 and generated a slew of looks on the power play (as well as even strength) despite a 2-for-8 night and some missed opportunities to put the game away after the Rangers took multiple bad penalties including two for delay of the game and two for having too many men on the ice.
Defensively, though it was a spotty performance. The Flyers penalty kill was shaky and things could easily have been worse for Philadelphia than New York's 2-for-5.
Erik Gustafsson, who has nine points in 14 games this season (which is why he is usually in the starting lineup despite defensive misadventures at times), notched his first goal and eighth assists of the season. Shayne Gostisbehere scored a power play goal for his first tally of the season and assisted on the Gustafsson goal, as "Ghost" recorded his first multi-point game of the season and increased from one point on the campaign to three in 10 games.
Continuing their red-hot runs, Joel Farabee (7th assist) set up James van Riemsdyk (9th goal, 7th PPG) for a goal that gave the Flyers a 3-1 lead in the second period. Kevin Hayes (7th) scored what proved to be the game-winner, opening a 4-2 lead at the time it was scored at 14:37 of the second period.
All of the damage by New York was done by Chris Kreider, who registered a hat trick with two power play goals and an even strength tally. The third tally cut the gap to 3-2 in the final period. Kreider scored once each in the first, second and third periods. Mika Zibanejad set up of the first and and second Kreider goals.
Both teams received strong goaltending in this match despite the combined seven goals. New York's Igor Sheshterkin was largely left to fend for himself at times and kept his team in the game as he stopped 35 of 39 shots. Brian Elliott, who stopped two separate Zibanejad shorthanded breakaways and several back-door set up attempts, denied 24 of 27 Rangers shots.
From an analytics standpoint, the top end of the Flyers lineup had their way with the Rangers for the most part. Michael Raffl (13:04, three hits, two key blocked shots) also turned in a strong performance. Most of the bottom portion of the Philadelphia lineup struggled. It was also a tough night for the defense pairing of Phil Myers and Travis Sanheim (especially the former) as well as Robert Hägg.
The rest of the East Division was idle on Wednesday apart from the Flyers-Rangers game. With the win the Flyers moved back into third place in the division from a total points (9-4-3 for 21 ooints) standpoint and improved their points percentage to .656, second best in the division behind only Boston. The Flyers are 0-3-2 against the Bruins this season but 9-1-1 against the rest of the division so far.
The Flyers will practice on Thursday at the Skate Zone and then head on Friday to Buffalo. Philly will play the Sabres on Saturday and Sunday afternoons. On March 2nd, 4th and 6th, the Flyers are on the road to play the Pittsburgh Penguins. This will mark the first time in team franchise history that Philly has played three consecutive regular season games in the same city against the same opponent. It has, however, happened in the postseason when the NHL used a 2-3-2 format, such as the 1985 Stanley Cup Final against Edmonton.
Philadelphia Flyers Blogger •NHL.com • 
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