The Flyers don’t score a lot. They fall behind a lot, too. But they’ve been resilient, and they’ve found ways to fight back.
Nick Tricome
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Tag: dan vladar
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The Flyers are the NHL’s comeback kids, for better or worse
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Matvei Michkov scores again, but Flyers fall to Oilers in OT
The seconds were ticking down, and Travis Konecny thought he had just tipped in the game-winner.
Then the officials took an extra look. They deemed that Owen Tippett was a step ahead of the play and entered the offensive zone too early on that pivotal possession.
The Flyers were offside, the goal was taken back, and Wednesday night against superstar Connor McDavid and a struggling Edmonton Oilers team went into overtime at Xfinity Mobile Arena.
Jack Roslovic scored the winner for the visitors a 1:19 into the extra frame, on a neutral-zone turnover and a quickly ensuing 2-on-0 that had goalie Dan Vladar caught in no-man’s land.
The Flyers lost, 2-1, still taking a point out of the contest, but dropping to 8-5-3 on the season.
Here’s how an up and down night played out…
Mich unleashed
Matvei Michkov has his legs again.
He was covering a lot of ice Wednesday night and getting after puck carriers, and you could tell just by his stride that he’s moving way more efficiently than he did at the start of the year – his knees are staying bent and he’s been laboring a lot less of late.
Michkov was moving well with the puck through the first period, and created a couple of decent looks for the Flyers’ energetic start, but then late into the second period, he broke through.
The Flyers went on their first power play of the night with a Jake Walman hook on Tippett.
Michkov’s unit got its setup established in the offensive zone, and after giving the puck to Cam York up by the point to take a scan, the defenseman fed it back to Michkov, who was given space along the wall by Edmonton’s penalty kill.
Michkov wheeled in around the top of the left faceoff circle, then rifled a shot to the right post just over Stuart Skinner’s glove for the power-play goal and a 1-1 tie.
Michkov had a slow start to the season, and by his own admission, an altered training regimen following his first year in the NHL and a struggle to focus out of the gate contributed to that.
But the 20-year-old has found a flow again.
Michkov now has a goal in each of his last three games and brought himself up to nine points through 16 games on the year.
The talented winger has star, face-of-the-franchise level potential, and the Flyers do believe he’ll reach it as a key part of their long-term future.
The hope now is that those early struggles and the prospect of a sophomore slump are falling behind him, and that he’ll start accelerating back toward his ceiling.
Because, for as much as the Flyers’ focus is still on tomorrow, a breakout from Michkov now can do a lot for a team that is playing much better today.
It just didn’t get them a win on Wednesday night.
Some jump through (most of) one
The Oilers came out wanting to play fast.
The Flyers were prepared to match.
Tippett made a clean zone entry and then a cut inside between Leon Draisaitl and Darnell Nurse to fire a shot that rang off the post; Matvei Michkov carried the puck up the ice and back into the zone, making his own move across to drop off a pass for Noah Juulsen to sneak in and take a healthy shot on; and even Cam York and Travis Sanheim jumped up from the defense to carry their own two-man rush to the Edmonton net, helped by a slick give-and-go pass from Travis Konecny through the neutral zone.
The Flyers had juice, were moving the puck pretty cleanly, and taking chances. That gave way to some good looks for McDavid and the Oilers, sure, but to the Flyers’ credit, they did well to keep their sticks in the way and on the puck…for a while, at least.
Energy did seem to taper off toward the end of the first, and that reflected in the 13-5 shot count in favor of Edmonton by the end of it.
So did McDavid wrapping around from behind the Philadelphia net to pick up a loose puck and set up Evan Bouchard with a clear shot in front while everyone in orange collapsed in.
Vladar, who was otherwise solid in goal through the opening period and for the whole game, couldn’t track that puck in time, allowing the Oilers to take a 1-0 lead.
The Flyers, meanwhile, would go into the intermission operating from behind, not irrecoverably so, but at a clear lack of shot volume and, as the period wore on, a noted struggle to generate effective scoring chances from inside.
It didn’t get much better in the second for a while. With about 7:30 left, they only had two shots all period that were relatively harmless, and were getting outshot 24-7 in total.
It wasn’t until the power play and Michkov’s ensuing goal a couple of minutes later that the Flyers finally started to break from it.
Back in the fray
Tyson Foerster returned from injury Wednesday night, and his line with Noah Cates and Bobby Brink was put back together.
And maybe to little surprise, they got back to being a key two-way line.
Cates as the center, especially, would play a major role in defending against McDavid, and past Edmonton’s first goal, he held up pretty well in doing so.
Toward the end of the second period in particular, Cates kept McDavid tied up against the boards while the Oilers’ superstar had the puck to suppress any last-second chances before the horn.
Cates did get tagged for a high stick on McDavid right off the draw to begin the third period, but just as important for the Flyers on Wednesday night was that their penalty kill held up and went a perfect 2-for-2 against the Oilers with a man-advantage.
Watch where you’re going
Vladar, once again, was stellar in net for the Flyers, cutting down angles with his big frame and keeping bounces and any chaos in front under control on the way to stopping 29 of 30 Edmonton shots through regulation.
He also got ran twice by the Oilers.
In the first period, Vladar reached out from the crease to cover a puck, and Curtis Lazar, charging in to try and pick it up, tripped over the goaltender and appeared to jam Vladar’s wrist in the process. Vladar got up, put his blocker back on, and stayed in.
Then in the third, Trent Frederic tried to chip at a pass to the inside, was short on space in front of the crease, and skated straight into Vladar, who was not happy after getting back up from the collision. None of his teammates were either.
A scrum broke out, Mattias Janmark, off to the side, drew Vladar’s ire and then a couple of jabs from Noah Juuslen.
Janmark got an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty, Frederic got goaltender interference for the charge at the net, and Vladar a roughing minor after the pile-up.
The Flyers left it with a late power play. Nothing came of it.
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Nick Tricome
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Sean Couturier scores twice, Flyers get first win of Rick Tocchet era in home opener
The Flyers have their first win, and so does Rick Tocchet as their head coach.
Sean Couturier scored twice, with the latter serving as the winner, Trevor Zegras made a clutch play late to get it to him, and the Flyers piled on a couple of empty netters soon after to put away the defending champion Florida Panthers, 5-2, in their home opener at Xfinity Mobile Arena.
They’re 1-1-1 after an initial road trip full of some early rough patches to start. But maybe they’re on their way now.
Here are the highlights from Monday night in South Philly…
Big Z
Couturier lasered home the winning goal, but Zegras had his “Welcome to Philly” moment in setting him up for it.
Handling the puck behind the Florida net as a late power play from a Sam Bennett slash expired, Zegras saw the pressure closing in, but he didn’t shy away from it.
Two checkers came crashing down on him. Somehow, he stayed upright and bodied both of them away, then wired the puck out to the front of the net with a wide-open Sean Couturier, who already had one goal on the night, there to receive it.
The Flyers’ captain quickly made it two with a pinpoint shot over Florida goalie Daniil Tarasov’s outstretched glove for the 3-2 lead.
But it all started with Zegras, who the Flyers took a calculated risk trading for over the summer in the hopes that he could still prove a top-six center and a skater who could add a bit more punch to the power play.
He made his first mark Monday night, getting the Flyers to their first win as two empty-netters from Bobby Brink and then Christian Dvorak followed soon after to ice it.
Seriously, though, how did Zegras stay on his feet from that hit?
“I don’t know,” he said in the locker room postgame. “I really don’t know. My neck’s f***ed up.”
“It’s a big moment, right?” Tocchet said of the play. “He got hit, too. That’s what I like. You know you’re gonna get hit, and you’re willing to take a hit to make a play. It’s a high-level play, and obviously, Coots buried it.”
Captain’s orders
Couturier produced a couple of vintage looks through the first period, dropped a hammer in the second, then had his winner in the third.
The veteran center knocked the puck away from Anton Lundell up by the point, and with the angle, he got the jump to turn it the other way for an early breakaway scoring chance that was turned away at the last second.
Then, with Florida trying to get the puck out from their zone along the wall midway through the frame, Couturier cut across and put his stick in the way of an attempted pass from Uvis Balinskis that turned possession over to him.
Couturier kicked the puck out to Tyson Foerster, who had dropped down in support, and the winger was free to cut in toward the hashmarks and drag a shot across his body. It beat Panthers goalie Dannil Tarasov for the 1-0 Flyers lead.
Couturier was called for a hook in front of the Florida net later in the second period, but was otherwise pretty controlling and brought it back later on, when he broke out over center ice from a turnover that flipped from Travis Sanheim to Travis Konecny and then to him to be left all alone with Tarasov again.
He picked his corner and didn’t miss, sending the Flyers up 2-0 and the crowd on its feet chanting “Coooots!”
The Flyers are getting younger, and they’re still in need of a true high-end center and just higher quality depth down the middle in general. But Couturier, as the captain and even at 32, still very much has a role here.
If he can sustain as their main shutdown center, and even find a bit of offense as he did Monday night, calling back to his Selke form, he can get the Flyers by as they are right now as the defensively responsible forward presence that lets the more offensive parts like Matvei Michkov and Travis Konecny go to work.
“I don’t think he wants to prove anybody wrong. I mean, the guy’s a good hockey player,” Tocchet said of Couturier postgame. “He plays a 200-foot game, and he cares”
And Monday night, the captain made all the difference.
Power play pressure
The Flyers’ power play didn’t score on their five power play tries Monday night, which isn’t great…
But it can move the puck around, and it can get some decent-looking shots on the net while keeping the puck rolling downhill.
The top power-play unit of Konecny, Owen Tippett, Michkov, Trevor Zegras, and Jamie Drysdale had Florida on its heels during the second period, working a constant, efficient cycle that opened up lanes and tired the Panthers’ penalty killers out for a string of several chances in quick succession.
They kept the pressure on, Florida couldn’t get out, and it was continuous up until the power play clock hit zero.
There was no goal, but the effort alone was enough for fans to applaud it.
The power play, after years of being one of the league’s worst, actually looks kind of decent now – at least on Monday night it did. It also ended up a factor in the lead-up to Couturier’s winner, as the Flyers kept the puck down in the offensive zone while on the man advantage until the lane opened up for Zegras only after the timer ran out – and after he took that vicious hit.
Vladar volatiliy
Dan Vladar got the nod Monday night for his second start of the season and looked good through two periods.
He kept the net looking small using his size, approach, and mechanics to take away space, much like he did on Thursday against the Panthers down in Sunrise.
Then the third period happened, mainly that shift where the Panthers kept the puck down in the Flyers’ end for two minutes straight without a stoppage and a delayed Tippett tripping penalty.
The Panthers went on the power play and carried the puck down. Vladar got crossed up and lost track of the puck behind the net before realizing it had slipped back up to Sam Bennett with a lot of net to shoot at.
There was nothing he could do as Bennett fired it in for the 2-2 tie.
Still, he ultimately did hold off the final rush until Couturier’s deciding goal came through, going on to stop 24 of 26 shots in total.
He has his first win as a Flyer, too.
A moment for No. 1
The Flyers were introduced Monday night, then they needed a moment to acknowledge Bernie Parent.
The iconic goalie, who was a central figure to the Broad Street Bullies and the back-to-back Stanley Cups, passed away last month at 80 years old.
But Parent was always more than that. He was someone who stayed in Philadelphia after he retired, someone who gave back, and was always willing to talk to anyone with the biggest smile on his face. He was a friend.
In the dark of Xfinity Mobile Arena, with Parent’s No. 1 sewn on to the left shoulder of every Flyer’s jersey and painted on the ice behind the nets as the spotlights focused on them, public address announcer Lou Nolan read off a tribute to the Flyers legend, then asked the crowd to stand up and give a standing ovation in his honor rather than a somber moment of silence.
They obliged and echoed chants of “BERNIE!” one more time.
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Nick Tricome
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