October 19, 2023
With superstar Connor McDavid and the Oilers in town, the Flyers thoroughly dominated Edmonton up and down the ice Thursday night, 4-1.
What rebuild? (I'm kidding, they have a ways to go.)
But it was an impressive win all the same from this group.
Here are five thoughts on the victory...
Joel Farabee and Bobby Brink connected on the night's opening goal and it was a beauty.
Joel Farabee makes it 1-0! Great play by Beezer and Brink
— Nasty Knuckles (@NastyKnuckles) October 20, 2023
pic.twitter.com/4Q4GGvsRrS
Just about everything on that sequence went picture-perfect for the Flyers from the second Travis Sanheim chipped the puck back up the boards with Edmonton's Warren Foegele napping in trying to get to it.
From the cross-up upon the zone entry to throw the defenders out of wack to the cleanly threaded passes and then the finish, you couldn't have drawn that up any better.
And who it all came from is a good sign.
Farabee has his second goal now through the first four games in a season where he's (finally) fully healthy and expected to help take the reins for where this team goes next as a veteran, though still very young, piece.
Brink, meanwhile, has continued to skate just as hard as he did in the preseason and has made numerous plays throughout, though Thursday night was the first time they started to materialize into points with the primary assist on Farabee's goal – his first in the NHL since April 12, 2022 following his signing out of college.
Brink made a handful of other great offensive plays Thursday night, notably while operating from behind the Oilers' net, like a quick chance generated from the corner immediately into the first and then this sequence late in the second that began with an instinctive backhand pass to the front of the net that went on to nearly end with a completely wrap-around that could've stood as his first NHL goal.
BOBBY BRINK WITH AN UNBELIEVABLE BEHIND THE BACK PASS THAT ALMOST LEADS TO HIS FIRST NHL GOAL. THIS KID IS INSANE.#PHIvsEDM #LetsGoFlyers pic.twitter.com/LFjEB2tQWF
— Flyers Clips (@Flyers_Clips) October 20, 2023
So close.
But the key takeaway right now is that Brink is making things happen, and doing so often. So long as he stays with it, the goals will come.
There also appears to be some solid chemistry building there on a line with Farabee and Noah Cates.
The Flyers opened the season with the idea of operating on a rotation with some of their young guys – mainly Brink, Tyson Foerster, and on defense, Egor Zamula and Emil Andrae – until one or more of them looked fully settled in as a pro.
Brink, however, played so well in the preseason that he made it impossible for the Flyers to keep him off the roster, and with Morgan Frost healthy-scratched for the second straight game, now he's starting to make it impossible for them to keep him out of the lineup on the whole.
The top defensive pairing of Cam York and Travis Sanheim put in an impressive showing against probably the toughest matchups you could get in the NHL between Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl.
The Oilers are going to get their chances. When McDavid is on the ice, that's inevitable, but the two did well in keeping those heavy assignments as contained as possible, while finding some good opportunities to jump in offensively, like here when York caught Edmonton on a line change and used it as a chance to skate the puck straight up the ice.
Just got to watch the York rush from earlier and oh my#PHIvsEDM #LetsGoFlyers pic.twitter.com/40W220lv9u
— Flyers Clips (@Flyers_Clips) October 20, 2023
York also exhibited some shifty skating and solid protection of the puck while pushing to move it up ice.
Cam York is so slippery, it is seriously so impressive. Adding even the slightest touch of aggressiveness to his game has already elevated his game to a different level.#PHIvsEDM #LetsGoFlyers pic.twitter.com/jcmaGe2Y7n
— Flyers Clips (@Flyers_Clips) October 20, 2023
Sanheim's and York's strengths on the back end are both in getting the puck moving up ice, so any time they can get involved offensively, suddenly the Flyers are that much more dangerous for it.
It won't always happen that way, but when it works, hey, it works.
But that was all also backed by another solid performance in goal from Carter Hart, who stopped 22-of-23 shots to secure the win.
Against the Oilers, Hart did a good job of making sure to swallow up shots to avoid any dangerous rebounds and was great about covering the puck whenever Edmonton had any momentum building, particularly past the halfway mark of the second, when McDavid was cycling around with the puck before trying to force it in front to Zach Hyman.
Hart reached out with his glove and trapped it before any damage could be done.
Minus the loss in Ottawa, when pretty much everything looked bad, Hart has been incredibly steady through all three of the Flyers' wins. And whenever you have the goaltender playing well, the team in front of him often plays a lot more confidently and freely.
It showed on Thursday night.
"It wasn't as busy," head coach John Tortorella said of the goaltender's workload against Edmonton. "But he made some key saves at key times. Second period, he made a couple of big saves...
"With a team like that, they score a goal, they can get going really quickly and score a bunch. So Carter, from Day 1 here, has just looked solid and played another good game tonight."
Owen Tippett made two great passes Thursday night that led straight to Cam Atkinson goals.
The first off his backhand along the wall after a great move to shake his back checker:
We're about that @CamAtkinson89 Action. #EDMvsPHI | #LetsGoFlyers pic.twitter.com/FM4NhtIzyu
— Philadelphia Flyers (@NHLFlyers) October 20, 2023
And then the second that he threaded straight through the neutral zone, which sprung Atkinson at the offensive blue line to leave him all alone to take care of the rest.
That's ✌️ thus far, Shooter. #EDMvsPHI | @CamAtkinson89 | #LetsGoFlyers pic.twitter.com/kCGYw3QGZb
— Philadelphia Flyers (@NHLFlyers) October 20, 2023
Tippett has been quiet on the stat sheet to start after a breakout year last season, but he's also been skating from the left wing instead of the right in the early going as a right-handed shot.
He's still exhibited all the traits that led to his success last season – the use of his size and skating to shield and drive the puck toward the net, his knack for finding the open ice to generate chances, and so on – but it's all been happening from the opposite side now, which is an adjustment.
But he and Atkinson had it all going for them against the Oilers, resulting in Tippett's first two helpers of the year and Atkinson's 2nd and 3rd goals in four games after a one-year absence.
"There were plays during the first couple of games too, but it just comes with chemistry with your linemates," Tippett said. "I think being on the left side is going to open up a lot for me, and I think it showed tonight that if we're on the same page it will open stuff up for Cam as well."
Sean Walker. SNIPE.
Sean Walker’s first goal with the Flyers comes shorthanded!
— Nasty Knuckles (@NastyKnuckles) October 20, 2023
pic.twitter.com/7OxwZjjWty
Just wicked, and shorthanded too after Sean Couturier, who's been looking more and more like his old self, took the puck away from McDavid.
"I think a lot of the things go unnoticed that he does, but the D zone's been spectacular," Walker said of Couturier afterward. "The way he can break up plays, calm things down for us, and obviously he has that offensive ability too, so I think everybody's been super impressed with him, the way he's come back and battled over those last few years.
"He's a huge addition, obviously, and the guys love having him around."
By the way, the Flyers' penalty kill went 2-for-2 against the fast and fierce power play of McDavid and the Oilers.
That's no easy task. But they got the job done.
Bonus thought: Thursday night's game was being streamed on Hulu and ESPN+, or at least it was supposed to be on ESPN+. Blackouts are lame (Hulu seemed to be fine though).
the Flyers game is exclusively on ESPN+ but is also blacked out. fuckin awesome. think this is the lord telling me i got better things to do pic.twitter.com/xjpfGh8Obu
— Dan the Flyera Fan (@DanTheFlyeraFan) October 19, 2023
Marc Staal skated into a collision and took a hard crash into the boards during Thursday night's game and was later ruled out by the Flyers for the remainder of it with an upper-body injury.
Tortorella had no update on the veteran defenseman postgame.
We'll have to wait and see what news the next couple of days brings.
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