Sean Couturier set up the game-tying goal before finishing things off in overtime as the Philadelphia Flyers pulled off their sixth comeback of the season when trailing in the third period against the Nashville Predators.
Roman Josi and Ryan O’Reilly scored for the Nashville Predators in the first period but that was all the offense they could muster as Aleksei Kolosov was able to record his second straight victory with a 25-save performance.
As for the Flyers, Scott Laughton broke his lengthy goal drought in the first period but largely for the first 59:49 of the game, the offense looked dead in the waters. However, Morgan Frost was able to tie things up with just 11.4 seconds left before Couturier finished it off in overtime.
After ending their 5-game homestand with an overtime loss to the Vegas Golden Knights after holding leads of 3-0 and 4-2, the Flyers headed on the road to face the struggling Predators.
Aleksei Kolosov earned the start after Ivan Fedotov played last game, however the rest of the lineup remained the same.
As for the Predators, they entered Wednesday’s game with a 7-12-3 record, which had them second to last both in the Central Division and the NHL’s standings behind just the Chicago Blackhawks. After a whirlwind of an offseason that had many believing they were Stanley Cup contenders, things have not gone the way they had planned.
Juuse Saros earned the call between the pipes again and while his record wasn’t fantastic (6-10-2), he had great peripherals with a 2.57 GAA and a .915 SV% with 2 shutouts.
Filip Forsberg paced the club in both goals (9) and points (17), Roman Josi paced the club in assists (13), and Jonathan Marchessault and Ryan O’Reilly rounded out the top-3 with 12 points apiece. Steven Stamkos has struggled as well with just 7 goals and 11 points in 22 games.
FIRST PERIOD
At the 5:28 mark, Luke Evangelista and Ryan Poehling received concurrent minors and while playing 4-on-4, Roman Josi was able to nab the game’s opening goal after his wraparound attempt deflected off of Travis Sanheim and past Aleksei Kolosov at the 6:17 mark.
With 7:12 remaining in the period, Scott Laughton snapped his 18-game goalless streak with a bad-angle shot to get the Flyers on the board. The veteran’s third goal of the season was fired from the corner boards and it somehow squeaked through Saros and the post.
With 3:42 left to play, Ryan O’Reilly snapped a lengthy goal drought of his own at 13 games after he wired a hard one-timer from the faceoff dot past Kolosov short-side for his 4th of the season. O’Reilly got the puck to Gustav Nyquist before he fed it right back to him to retake the lead.
The period came to a close with Zachary L’Heureux and Sanheim receiving concurrent roughing minors but the Predators were up 2-1 on the scoresheet and up 10-6 on the shot counter.
SECOND PERIOD
59 seconds into the period and 4-on-4 play, Matvei Michkov was called for a retaliatory roughing minor, sending the Predators to an abbreviated 4-on-3 man advantage. After a barrage of chances, the Flyers survived the kill but Nashville came right back while at even-strength with Kolosov standing his ground.
Outside of a flurry of shots at the onset of the period, not much really happened in the final 17 or so minutes. The temperature was certainly rising after the end of the first period with a lot more scrums after whistles and players jawing at one another, however the Flyers had difficulties creating much of anything on the offensive side of the puck.
At the end of two periods, the Predators remained up 2-1 and held an even larger lead in shots at 19-13.
THIRD PERIOD
In a very fast-paced third period, it was extremely reminiscent to the second period where there was very little action.
The shots were 6-3 for Nashville through the first 17 minutes of the period and while the Flyers weren’t neccesarily being outplayed, they also didn’t have much of an element of danger in their game.
After a couple shaky goals allowed by Kolosov in the first period, he was able to regroup very well to weather the storm thrown his way, similar to his start against Chicago.
With 2:46 remaining, John Tortorella pulled his goaltender for the extra attacker. 23 seconds later, the Predators were called for a too many men on the ice minor, sending the Flyers onto their first power play of the night.
The top-ranked penalty killing unit of the Predators definitely looked the part as the 6 Flyers sweaters weren’t able to get anything setup for longer than a few seconds. It got so bad that the Predators had thrown three 200-foot attempts towards the empty net and just missed on each.
With 11.4 seconds remaining and on their last breath, Morgan Frost was able to deflect a pass past Saros’ glove to tie the game and evidently force overtime.
Sanheim led the rush before dumping it to Sean Couturier, who threw a pass to the streaking Frost as he was able to get the blade of his stick on the puck for his third of the season.
OVERTIME
To start overtime, the game opened up completely with end to end chances coming from both ends. Josi rang the post to start before Michkov’s breakaway attempt hit iron in response.
Slightly past the midway mark of overtime, Couturier was able to send the Flyers home with the victory after deflecting a Travis Konecny pass attempt, similarly to Frost’s game-tying goal.
The captain was not only able to set up the tying goal but he finished things off with a one-handed attempt as he scored a goal in a third straight contest.
UP NEXT
The Flyers return home to host the New York Rangers in a Black Friday matinee (1:00pm; NBCSP).
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