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Rick Tocchet’s Philadelphia Flyers earned a wild 3-2 (2-1) shootout win over the Pittsburgh Penguins on Tuesday. It featured two disallowed goals — one for each team — in overtime. Eight players (four aside) were disqualified from the shootout after an end-of-overtime mass scrum. The Flyers dominated the second period and were the better team overall against a Pittsburgh club playing the latter game of a back-to-back.
In the end, the Flyers Improved to 5-1-0 on home ice and 5-3-1 overall. The team is back in action on Thursday as they host the Nashville Predators.
Meanwhile, here’s the good, the bad and the ugly from Thursday’s schmozz.
The Good
- The Noah Cates line, matched as usual against the opponent’s top line, had an outstanding all around game. That’s been their norm since last December but it’s been a treat to watch. Actually, Cates, Tyson Foerster and Bobby Brink have all elevated their respective individual games. Meanwhile, they’ve maintained the chemistry they forged last season.
- Travis Konecny’s goal, his 200th in the NHL, was a pure snipe. He’s had some frustrating games in the early going of this season. That was a big one at an important time.
- The second period was downright dominant for Philly. If not for several outstanding saves by Arturs Silovs, the Flyers would have blown the game wide open. Instead, they took a narrow 2-1 lead to the third period.
- The Flyers’ penalty kill was outstanding. They also scored a power play goal. Philly decisively won the special teams battle.
- Ersson is elite in shootouts. Matvei Michkov and Brink scored two beautiful goals on their attempts.
The Bad
- Samuel Ersson misplayed an RVH save attempt in the first period and it resulted in the game’s first goal. After the game, I asked Ersson about it. He gave a technical explanation of how he messed up on the play. I’ll write about that play in the Friday Forecheck column on the Flyers official website.
- On the same sequence that led to Justin Brazeau’s sixth goal of the season, Konecny got beaten defensively. It was still a chance that Ersson needs to stop 99 times out of 100.
- The Flyers third defensive pair (on this night, Egor Zamula returned to the lineup, paired with Noah Juulsen) had some hold-your-breath shifts. The Flyers recalled Emil Andrae for the second time this season. We will see if he’s in the lineup against the Predators.
The Ugly
- It was more bizarre than ugly but overtime taxed the NHL Rule Book. The rules cover every situation that came up — illegal substitution on a delayed penalty, automatic review (no coach’s challenge needed) of all overtime goals, shootout disqualification — but are uncommon circumstances. If you have not done so, I highly recommend reading Paul Stewart’s article today on shootout rules.
- Sidney Crosby left the bench after time expired and got physically involved in the end-of-OT scrum. The Penguins should only have (legally) had three skaters and Silovs on the ice. Pittsburgh actually got a huge break when Crosby received only the same 10-minute misconduct as every other player on the ice from both teams. Normally, when a player leaves the bench and gets involved in an ongoing fracas on the ice, there’s a supplementary discipline consequence.
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