The Philadelphia Flyers took away one point against the Vegas Golden Knights in a 3-2 overtime loss at Xfinity Mobile Arena on Thursday evening. Two goals by Mark Stone, including the OT winner, paced Vegas.
The Flyers battled back from 1-0 and 2-1 deficits and played Vegas evenly for most of the night.
Ultimately, a poor game on special teams and an overtime turnover proved to be the difference. The Flyers are 2-2-1 on their current six-game homestand.
Zack Whitecloud (1st goal of the season) gave Vegas an early 1-0 lead. Trevor Zegras (team-leading 11th goal) evened the score.
In the second period, Noah Juulsen’s first goal as a Flyer drew Philly even after Stone gave Vegas the 2-1 lead. There was no further scoring until Stone won the game for the Golden Knights in OT.
Dan Vladar made 17 saves on 20 shots. Akira Schmid stopped 17 of 19 shots to earn the win for the Golden Knights.
The Flyers went 0-for-3 on the power play. They were 1-for-2 on the penalty kill.
Here’s the good, the bad, and the ugly from Thursday night’s game.
The good
- At 5-on-5, the Flyers played Vegas very evenly, especially from the middle of the first period onward. Vegas is a big, heavy team. The Flyers hung right with them, even in the trenches.
- Christian Dvorak continued to make timely plays. With two assists on Thursday, he’s recorded back-to-back two points games.
- Travis Sanheim made perhaps his best offensive play of the season. He used his feet to buy time. Sanheim then made a perfect pass to Trevor Zegras at the back post. Zegras had a tap-in goal.
- Characteristic resilience. The Flyers trailed 1-0 in the first period and briefly fell behind, 2-1, in the middle frame. They kept battling. ‘
- Noah Juulsen is not a player who provides much offense. But he fired off a howitzer of a one-timer on Philly’s second goal. Dvorak teed it up nicely, and Juulsen got every bit of the the puck.
The bad
- The Flyers were awful on the power play. Philly mustered only one shot on goal — and no scoring chances of significance — on three full power play. On their third power play, the Flyers juggled personnel. Noah Cates and Bobby Brink went on to start the 5-on-4. Matvei Michkov and Owen Tippett came off. Afterwards, Rick Tocchet said, “Did you see the first two power plays? What would you do?”
- With the power play scuffling, the PK had to hold even. In the second period, Stone scored his first of two goals on the night.
- Emil Andrae had a rough night with the puck on his stick. He fumbled or turned the puck over several times.
The ugly
- Travis Konecny’s flubbed outlet pass that led to Stone’s winning goal in sudden death created a frustrating finish to the game.
- Philly’s too men men penalty in the second period was too blatant not to call. There were five skaters on the ice and Rodrigo Abols came out way too early.
- The Flyers either over-passed or missed the net on some of their better scoring chances. Sean Couturier had a semi-breakaway with the game tied at 2-2 but his shot missed the net.
- Aside from his goal, Trevor Zegras had a pretty tough game. So did Michkov and Tippett.
Tocchet’s Take
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Christian Dvorak is well on his way to earning a raise and a multi-year contract after this season. Whether it happens in Philadelphia or elsewhere remains to be season. He does a lot of things well on both sides of the puck and he’s developed pretty strong chemistry with Zegras in particular. After the game, there was a humorous exchange between Dvorak and Charlie O’Connor.
Charlie informed Dvorak that Zegras sang his praises and credited him with the line’s success. Dvorak grinned and deflected the credit right back at Zegras.
“It’s probably all him, not me,” Dvorak said.
