March 08, 2016
If the middle 20 minutes of the Philadelphia Flyers’ 4-2 win over the red-hot Tampa Bay Lightning wasn’t the team’s best period of the season, it has to be way up there.
And nobody knows that more than the Flyers themselves.
“There was some domination there for a little bit,” Brayden Schenn said. “I think guys were moving their feet, protecting the puck, winning races and you know we had them in there for a majority of that period.”
Dave Hakstol wouldn’t dare utter the word “domination,” but his assessment was more or less similar to Schenn’s. The Flyers moved their feet, while the defending Eastern Conference champs mostly did not. 22 shots on goal is what will stand out and rightfully so, but you can’t attain that lofty number without solid two-way play.
“We don’t let teams get in the zone, no easy entries for us,” Shayne Gostisbehere said. “We want to be a hard team [to play against]. It is working for us and we want to keep that going.”
The Flyers’ breakouts were sharper, and they entered the offensive zone much easier than both Tampa Bay, and peculiarly, themselves with the man advantage. When the Orange and Black got the puck into the offensive zone, all four lines generally kept it there or forced a weak clearing attempt with the forecheck.
| Flyers | Lightning | |
| Shots on goal | 22 | 6 |
| Shot attempts | 41 | 15 |
One problem: They couldn’t beat backup goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy.
“He was outstanding,” Lightning coach Jon Cooper said. “We had one guy show up tonight and it was him.”
The 21-year-old netminder turned away 21 Flyers shots in the period (with a little help from the crossbar). The only time that the Flyers could beat Vasilevskiy was on a scrambled play, which felt like it was bound to happen at some point with all of that offensive zone time.
As the period continued with the Flyers having nothing to show for their territorial dominance, you couldn’t help but wonder if they would get exasperated due to their inability to find the back of net.
“We weren’t frustrated,” Gostisbehere said. “We knew we were playing really good hockey. We had them in the palm of our hand.”
No argument there from the coach of the Atlantic Division leaders.
“We got out played, outworked, outcompeted, outclassed, out everything else,” Cooper said.
It would be easy to talk just about Gostisbehere, who not only scored the Flyers’ first two goals but also broke Behn Wilson’s team record for goals by a rookie defenseman in just his 47th game of the season. Hakstol wasn’t doing that, though.
“I thought Gostisbehere was a good part of a good team effort tonight,” he said matter-of-factly.
Dave Hakstol on Flyers, Ghost from Rich Hofmann on Vimeo.
The record breaker was an absolute missile off Gostisbehere’s stick, but when the Flyers head coach was asked about it, Hakstol looked elsewhere.
“It was a hell of a pass on that power play through the seam,” he said of Claude Giroux’s assist. “So like I said, I think we had a lot of guys who played well. Gostisbehere was one of them. You know, everybody in the lineup did their part.”
Before the six-game homestand began, Jake Voracek estimated that the Flyers would need 10 out of a possible 12 points to stay in the playoff hunt. They accomplished his goal the hard way, both by losing to lowly Edmonton in regulation and not having the services of their second leading scorer after the first game against Minnesota.
The Flyers are two and three points out of the wild-card spots currently vacated by Pittsburgh in Detroit. With a very difficult upcoming schedule, it still will be tough sledding to make the playoffs. For now though, Voracek seemed pleased:
What a f****** game!!!!!!
— Jakub Voracek (@jachobe) March 8, 2016
Follow Rich on Twitter: @rich_hofmann
