Carter Hart’s career night was enough to stave off the Vegas Golden Knights and closed out the home-stand with two straight victories. Hart made 47 stops, and Justin Braun and Oskar Lindblom scored first period goals, as the Flyers barely held off Jack Eichel and the Golden Knights. Eichel took 9 shots, several on the power play, but the story of the game was Carter Hart and only Carter Hart as he bettered his performance against Vegas from earlier in the season, a game he also stole by making 41 saves.
FIRST PERIOD
Looking to close out their franchise-long 8 game home-stand with a victory, the Flyers were immediately asked to kill a penalty after Travis Sanheim was called for a hooking penalty. Luckily for the Flyers, the Vegas Golden Knights’ power play has struggled this season, ranking 23rd in the league. However, they moved the puck very well and were in the offensive zone for nearly the entire 2 minutes, but Carter Hart stood his ground on all 4 shots that came his way.
As fate would have it, the Flyers first shot of the game came 5 minutes in but it found a way past Robin Lehner to give them a rather surprising 1-0 lead. After taking a shot to the helmet on the penalty kill, Justin Braun came back on his next shift and put the Flyers on the board. On a defensive zone face-off by Claude Giroux, the Flyers wingers pushed the puck out of the zone and quickly transitioned into the offensive zone. Travis Konecny received a pass from Scott Laughton before sending the puck to the point to an unmarked Braun. He fumbled with the puck a little before firing a shot through a maze of players and the simple play worked out in his favour as Lehner had trouble locating the puck as it found a way past him.
Even with the early lead, the Flyers couldn’t really gather momentum as the Golden Knights never took their foot off the pedal. By the mid-way point of the period the shots were 10-3 in favour of Vegas but Hart was doing his job thwarting any chance coming his way. Joel Farabee got called for a slashing penalty that gave the Knights another crack at the whip with their power play but unlike their first attempt, they weren’t able to produce any worthwhile opportunities.
The Flyers gained some momentum after their penalty kill as they almost had a 2 on 1 rush with Farabee coming out of the box, then Giroux’s one-time attempt was blocked away, and that culminated to the Flyers drawing a penalty of their own. The 30th ranked power play couldn’t set up properly, didn’t create any scoring chances, and were even called for an icing. The Flyers were given another power play near the end of the period but it was just as bad their first attempt.
With the penalty coming to a close, Oskar Lindblom scored on a wrap-around to give the Flyers a 2-0 lead with only 50.7 seconds remaining. On a perceived line change, Ivan Provorov dumped the pass to Scott Laughton before heading towards the bench. Laughton went end to end before losing control of the puck near the blue paint. Luckily the puck went to a streaking Lindblom, who had Lehner sliding over to tuck it home on the wrap-around for his 10th of the season.
With the Knights down by 2 with the period coming to a close, they went straight to the net trying to cut the deficit in half. Rasmus Ristolainen and Max Pacioretty collided with each other and then into Carter Hart, who had to make a few saves with all hell breaking loose in his crease. The Golden Knights had a 14-8 shot advantage but the Flyers went into the intermission with a 2-0 lead.
SECOND PERIOD
After a back-and-forth start to the second period with both teams creating scoring chances, the Flyers were called for too many men and Vegas was off to their 3rd power play of the game. After creating chances to no avail on their first attempt and not getting much of anything on their second power play, their third opportunity only lasted 39 seconds as Evgenii Dadonov cut the deficit in half with a goal from the slot.
Jack Eichel patiently held onto the puck before sending a quick pass to Jonathan Marchessault at the side of the net. He quickly tapped it to Dadonov in the slot and he made no mistake in finally getting a puck past Hart’s glove. The Vegas Golden Knights tried that exact same play on their first power play but Dadonov was stopped by the blocker.
By the second commercial break, the Golden Knights had complete control of the game as they came in wave after wave into the Flyers zone. However, Hart was up to the task time and time again making 24 saves by that point in time. With a chance to take somewhat of a strangle-hold on the game, the Flyers were awarded a power play after an interference call on Nicolas Hague. Starting to sound like a broken record but the organization of the power play was abysmal yet again as the best chance came from the Golden Knights shorthanded.
With 3:20 left in the second period, Rasmus Ristolainen was called for a slashing penalty as the Golden Knights were tasked with their fourth power play of the game.
In a great opportunity to tie the game late in the second period the Golden Knights were robbed 4 times, thrice on Eichel as Hart was sliding post to post and scrambling around all the chaos in and around his crease. After 40 minutes the shots were 30-16 for the Golden Knights.
THIRD PERIOD
It was a passive start to the third period for both teams but the Golden Knights were called for an offensive zone interference penalty to give the Flyers their fourth power play of the game; potentially looking to get some shots on this one. Only one shot attempt on the power play came off the stick of Keith Yandle but it missed the net. Luckily for the Flyers it didn’t translate in added momentum from the Knights as they were having issues traversing the dangerous scoring areas in the Flyers zone.
Trailing by one, the Golden Knights tried to throw everything towards Hart, which seemed to be the recurring theme of the game. They doubled up the Flyers in shots all throughout but for the most part they kept the Knights to the perimeter for most of the period. The Flyers weren’t able to muster up many scoring chances, the few they had were slap shots from the circles that were very easily defended.
With 1:45 to go in the third period, Ivan Provorov was called for a delay of game penalty after dumping the puck into the crowd. With the goalie pulled the Knights got a scoring chance from Jack Eichel that was stopped yet again by Hart, which represented a career high in saves for young net-minder at 42. At 1:24 remaining the Knights took a timeout but fortunately for the Flyers it didn’t lead to a game-tying goal. They fired 6 more shots towards the goaltender but he seemed determined to close this game out and the home-stand on a high note. The icing on the cake was a glove save on Eichel with 1 second left in the blue paint.
UP NEXT
Up next for the Flyers are the Florida Panthers on Thursday night on the road at BB&T Center.
