Flyers Quick Hits: Preds, Paul, Pelle

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Flyers Phantoms Bump

Rick Tocchet’s Philadelphia Flyers (8-5-1) concluded a successful mini road trip with a 3-1 victory over the Nashville Predators on Thursday. Dan Vladar bounced back from a couple of so-games in net. Meanwhile, Matvei Michkov bagged his elusive second goal of the season. Noah Cates scored the game-winner in the second period. Subsequently, Travis Konecny iced the win with an empty net goal. Here are the good, the bad and the ugly from Thursday’s victory.

The Good

  • Cam York quietly played another outstanding all-around hockey game. Offensively, he was instrumental in both the Michkov and Konecny goals. Defensively, he provided air-tight coverage, especially during the third-period closeout.
  • Jamie Drysdale also played a strong game. Meanwhile, he made an alert play to jump into the seam on the sequence that ended up with Cates scoring on the rebound.
  • The Flyers limited Nashville to just four shots on goal in the third period. They executed the box + 1 to near perfection, save for one mass scramble around the net. Vladar stepped up to keep the puck out of the net.
  • Konecny now has a six-game point streak.
  • It didn’t happen early. However, as the game progressed, the Flyers got back to getting pucks and traffic to the net. Juuse Saros had to work for his saves. Thankfully, Vladar matched his Predators counterpart, save for save, as needed.

The Bad

  • The Flyers came into the game striving to replicate the general process of Tuesday game (especially the first period) in Montreal. Instead, Nashville really took it to Philly in the first 10 minutes of the game.
  • Nick Seeler was stung by the puck on a second period blocked shot. He came right out for his next shift. However, he felt the effects.
  • Although the team D pushed Nashville to the perimeter, the Flyers spent some prolonged stretches defending rather than attacking.

The Ugly

  • With his team defending a one-goal lead in the third period, Garnet Hathaway took a retaliatory roughing penalty. He’s usually the one to draw such penalties. This time he took one. Thankfully, the penalty kill stepped up. Earlier, Hathaway was the catalyst of a multi-player scrum that took off Steven Stamkos and Jonathan Marchessault. Hathaway and Travis Sanheim (26:27 TOI, three blocked shots) went off, too. There was no manpower change. Nevertheless, it was a good trade-off during a Nashville power play.
  • Noah Juulsen also took a third-period penalty (high sticking) that forced the PK to step up.
  • The four minutes of third period PK time took Michkov out of line rotation in crunch time. That was unfortunate. Thursday was a game where his confidence seemed to be coming back once the puck finally went in again for him.

Paul Holmgren inducted into the Philly Sports Hall of Fame

A host of Flyers Alumni came out to the “Live!” hotel and casino event center on Thursday to honor Paul Holmgren. “Homer” was among the Class of 2025 inductees into the Philadelphia Sports Hall of Fame. Attending Alumni included Mark Howe, Bill Barber, the Watson brothers, Bob Kelly, Doug Crossman, Brian Propp, Lou Nolan and Zack Hill. Holmgren’s wife, Doreen, children Wes and Greta, plus a host of his grandchildren were on hand.

Pelle Lindbergh documentary

The Charlie Minn-directed Pelle Lindbergh documentary, the Swede of Philadelphia, opens tonight at various local AMC Theaters: Oaks, Voorhees, Cherry Hill, and Bensalem (Neshaminy 24). The film will have multiple show times.

2 thoughts on “Flyers Quick Hits: Preds, Paul, Pelle”

  1. Are you going to one of the showings or are you headed home? I am considering driving down, but may wait for it to show up on one of the streaming services. Do you know if he’s getting any traction on that? I have no idea how that works.

    1. I’ll be at the Voorhees showing tonight. Going to feel a bit odd because I’m one of the people Charlie interviewed. He’s done several Amazon Prime documentaries so, if this does well at local theaters, the chances of Amazon having interest in this one, too, increase significantly.

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