November 25, 2024
Eric Hartline/Imagn Images
Flyers captain Sean Couturier fires a shot on net during the first period of Monday night's game against the Vegas Golden Knights at the Wells Fargo Center.
Morgan Frost checked like crazy, Matvei Michkov pleased the crowd again with his second goal in as many games, and Emil Andrae scored the first of his NHL career on Monday night.
But the visiting Vegas Golden Knights steadily climbed back to force overtime and then the shootout, where the Flyers ultimately stumbled in a 5-4 loss at the Wells Fargo Center.
The Flyers still gained the loser's point, but dropped to 9-11-2 and left the five-game homestand with only a couple of wins, with a quick trip to Nashville on Wednesday on deck, followed by a return home to face the rival New York Rangers in a Black Friday matinee.
The good they'll try to carry forward from Monday night: "You take out seven or eight minutes of that second period where there were some turnovers on the wall, other than that, I thought we play a really good hockey game," head coach John Tortorella said postgame. "One of our better showings in the offensive zone as far as puck movement, people moving without. Take out seven or eight minutes, and it's a really good game."
The bad they'll try to leave behind: Those seven or eight minutes that prevented them from hanging on in the end against Vegas.
"We still have another step to get to," said captain Sean Couturier, who scored in the first period but took his share of the blame for the turnovers that led to Golden Knights ones in the second. "We can't be really satisfied."
The Flyers stormed out of the gate from the second the puck dropped and kept constant pressure on Vegas, who just couldn't seem to find the energy to match.
Frost, who hadn't scored since November 5 and had to endure another run of scratchings in between, tipped a Rasmus Ristolainen shot underneath the glove of the Vegas goaltender Ilya Samsonov, putting the Flyers up 1-0 just shy of nine minutes in. Owen Tippett carried the puck down and around the net back up to the point, dropping the puck off for Ristolain who moved in and got a shot off with Frost's stick in the right place at the right time for the redirect.
Risto with the blast, Frosty with the finish. 🤝#VGKvsPHI | #LetsGoFlyers pic.twitter.com/oc1ZzbsVv1
— Philadelphia Flyers (@NHLFlyers) November 26, 2024
A few minutes later, Couturier went barreling down along the boards all alone and picked his corner, beating Samsonov glove side again on the shot to make it a 2-0 game, with the sequence kickstarted by a Travis Konecny pick in the defensive zone and a stretch pass that reached Couturier already skating ahead of the Golden Knights' defense.
STAY HOT, COOTS! 🔥#VGKvsPHI | #LetsGoFlyers pic.twitter.com/5AWbZalGio
— Philadelphia Flyers (@NHLFlyers) November 26, 2024
There were other looks before and after.
From the jump, Couturier and Konecny made a zone entry and pass forward that sprung Joel Farabee straight to the net with the puck, but Farabee couldn't bury the move to the backhand as Samsonov got his leg out just in time to seal off the post.
Late into the period, Tyson Foerster took the puck back in and down behind the net, sliding it over to linemate Bobby Brink who was a few feet wider out, which set up a pass straight out to the front of the net for Noah Cates, who had his shot attempt blocked.
Then with less than two minutes left, Frost stepped in front of a Vegas pass in the neutral zone and carried it the other way, leaving the puck for Matvei Michkov upon the zone entry. The star rookie tries to feed Tippett circling around into the slot, but he couldn't settle the pass and spun out trying to corral it, nullifying the scoring opportunity.
Frost was a notably aggressive checker on Monday night, skating hard back the other way to break up an odd-man rush while the Flyers were on a power play – a pass flubbed over Andrae's stick while they were cycling in the offensive zone and that bad bounce gave the Knight's penalty kill a jump.
"Torts has kind of stressed to me that he wants to see the offense," Frost said postgame. "That's kind of what I'm here to do, but obviously, at the same time, I think I have some lapses defensively sometimes, so it's a bit of a balancing act."
Though he managed it well on Monday, stopping and creating scoring chances at either side of the ice.
In the second period, Frost battled after a puck to the front of the net mouth that he was able to bat out with his backhand...to guess who:
That’s rookie points leader Matvei Michkov, to you. #VGKvsPHI | #LetsGoFlyers pic.twitter.com/grsWn4mZ9O
— Philadelphia Flyers (@NHLFlyers) November 26, 2024
BEHOLD: EMIL ANDRAE’S FIRST NHL GOAL! #VGKvsPHI | #LetsGoFlyers pic.twitter.com/CsGi4IR8S0
— Philadelphia Flyers (@NHLFlyers) November 26, 2024
Both of those counterbalanced a three-goal rush from Vegas through the second, as the Knights found a way to start pushing back on the Flyers with marks from Jack Eichel, Ivan Barbashev, and then Pavel Dorofeyev on the power play.
The Flyers took the one-goal lead into the third and tried to endure on the back of some major saves from Ivan Fedotov and some additional scoring chances that they just couldn't put away, but Vegas was pressing and eventually found their opening just over eight minutes left in regulation.
Noah Hanifin took the puck from the point and stick-handled his way down with space, getting a feed inside to Tanner Pearson, who freed himself up with a stride back and an immediate shot that snuck under Fedotov's pads. Vegas tied it, 4-4.
4-4... pic.twitter.com/di8p73dIgg
— Flyers Nation (@FlyersNation) November 26, 2024
A late tripping call on Tomas Hertl drawn by Frost gave the Flyers the setup to walk out of regulation with the win, and he nearly gave them the go-ahead goal when Michkov hit him on a pass from across the ice down into the right corner, but Frost sailed the puck wide of the net – and a Samsonov caught in no man's land sliding around in the crease.
MORGAN WHY. pic.twitter.com/zgQBgn4uYM
— Flyers Nation (@FlyersNation) November 26, 2024
A late exchange of chances over the last couple of minutes in regulation yielded nothing for either side, even when the puck fell right in front of Farabee's feet in the dying seconds.
It was on to overtime again – a fate this Flyers team can't ever seem to avoid.
Frost continued to check relentlessly and nearly scored on a wicked spin move between defenders to the Vegas net, but again, the puck went wide.
IF MORGAN FROST DID THIS THE WELLS FARGO CENTER WOULD'VE EXPLODED.#LetsGoFlyers pic.twitter.com/XbTIEcH8VM
— Flyers Clips (@Flyers_Clips) November 26, 2024
Travis Sanheim took his turn driving in toward the net right after, but had the play broken up on a Nicolas Roy hold that sent him crashing into Samsonov, yet put the Flyers at a 4-on-3 advantage for the next two minutes.
Sanheim had two immediate high-danger shots that got saved then rang off the post, Couturier tried to handle and tuck the puck in from in tight, and Michkov was looming to the weak side as an ever-present threat that Vegas was sure to keep an eye on after his game-winner on Saturday along with his goal earlier in the night.
The Flyers came up empty, then stalled out in the shootout.
"I thought we played really well when we could've lost ourselves a little bit," Tortorella said of how his team handled Vegas shifting the momentum.
"I don't think we buckled. I think we found ourselves and stayed within ourselves and played...I thought we played our best when maybe we could've just folded and gave in a little bit after they came back."
Still, the Knights came back.
• Penguins GM Kyle Dubas was at Monday night's game and was seen conversing with Danny Brière in the press box ahead of puck drop.
Dubas is the director of player personnel for Team Canada for the NHL's 4 Nations Face-Off coming up in February. The rosters for Canada, the U.S., Finland, and Sweden are set to be announced in early December.
Sanheim is having a big year so far, and Tortorella has not been bashful about making a case for his defenseman to be on Canada's roster. He's done the same recently for Konecny up front, too.
They at least seem to have Dubas' attention if his presence Monday night was any indication.
• The Flyers held their annual Hockey Fights Cancer Night on Monday. The outside of the Wells Fargo Center was illuminated in lavender purple, and so were the scoreboard graphics, arena lighting, and ads on the boards inside.
The players arrived in the special-themed jerseys, a few of them skated with purple and white hats and tuques during warmups, too, and the team highlighted cancer survivors and fighters throughout the night, particularly Eli Kwait, a local high-schooler who is cancer-free after battling high-risk neuroblastoma since he was a toddler, and Penny Courtney, a wife, mother, and grandmother who is in the middle of her fight with the disease.
Kwait read off the starting lineup to the team in the locker room. Courtney dropped the ceremonial puck at center ice. Both are massive Flyers fans.
Then there was the wall along the tunnel that leads the Flyers out on to the ice every night. It too was lit up lavender, and filled with cards of the numerous names cancer battlers and survivors the team fights for. Ed Snider was one of them, the iconic Flyers founder and owner who passed away from cancer in early 2016. Anthemist Lauren Hart was another, a noted breast cancer survivor.
Then there was Oskar Lindblom, the name Couturier wrote in.
Lindblom was a fifth-round draft pick out of Sweden by the Flyers in 2014, and made his way up to the NHL roster a few years later, projecting to be a key forward for their future. But in December 2019, Lindblom was diagnosed with Ewing's sarcoma, which forced him to leave the team indefinitely while he received treatment.
He completed his chemotherapy and had his cancer in remission a few months later, and because of the league's pause from the COVID-19 pandemic, Lindblom ended up being able to join the team in the Toronto bubble and even skate for them again late into their playoff run.
All parties went their own way since, though. The Flyers eventually had to buy out Lindblom's contract to save cap space, he latched on with the San Jose Sharks for a couple of years after, then opted to return home to Sweden and play pro there.
But he's stayed on his former Flyers teammates' minds.
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