The New Jersey Devils made easy work of the Philadelphia Flyers as the Flyers were handedly beaten, 7-0.
The Flyers were without several players that included Travis Konecny and James van Riemsdyk, Elliot Desnoyers made his NHL debut, and Samuel Ersson was looking to keep his unbeaten record going, but unfortunately the Devils had other plans.
The game was tied 0-0 after the first period, but the Devils scored 3 goals in the second period to take the game away before adding 4 in the third period with the Flyers waving the white flag. Akira Schmid earned his first career NHL shutout, Jonas Siegenthaler scored the game-winning goal and added 2 assists, Jack Hughes and Nico Hischier each collected a goal and an assist, and 7 different Devils scored a goal.
Samuel Ersson did as much as he could with what was in front of him but ended up getting the loss after allowing 7 goals on 36 shots. He made countless saves on scoring chances in the first and second periods, but the Devils were too much for the Flyers to contain and they kept coming until the final horn sounded. The Flyers were also outshot 30-13 in the final 40 minutes.
The Philadelphia Flyers entered the belly of the beast in Newark as they went to head to head with the New Jersey Devils with several line changes and roster moves from yesterday’s disappointing 5-2 defeat to Montreal. Travis Konecny was placed on IR, which led the Flyers to call up Elliot Desnoyers for his NHL debut. Then they held out James van Riemsdyk and Cam York, with the former being “banged up” and the latter needing a “reset”, according to John Tortorella.
Joel Farabee, Morgan Frost, and Owen Tippett comprised the top line, followed by Kevin Hayes, Noah Cates, and Wade Allison, then Scott Laughton, Elliot Desnoyers, and Olle Lycksell, and they were completed by Nicolas Deslauriers, Patrick Brown, and Kieffer Bellows. Ivan Provorov and Tony DeAngelo were reunited, as well as Travis Sanheim and Rasmus Ristolainen, with Nick Seeler and Justin Braun forming the third pair. Samuel Ersson paved the way between the pipes looking for his 7th win of the season.
As for the Devils, they had won 7 of their last 10 games, sat in 2nd place in the Metropolitan Division, and 3rd place in the entire league behind only Carolina and Boston. They are paced by Jack Hughes, Dougie Hamilton, and Jesper Bratt among others and were going to provide a tall task for the beleaguered Flyers. Philadelphia was looking to take the season series 3-1 with a victory tonight.
FIRST PERIOD
After a quick and fiery start for the New Jersey Devils, the Philadelphia Flyers did a good job – early on – to clog the neutral zone and mitigate scoring chances in front of Samuel Ersson.
For a high-octane offense like the Devils, playing against a depleted Flyers team near the bottom in many defensive categories, they kept them off from registering a shot on goal from the 2:11 mark of the period – a stretch that lasted 9+ minutes. In that time the Flyers took 7 of their own towards Akira Schmid, including the Morgan Frost, Owen Tippett, and Joel Farabee line that came very close to taking a 1-0 lead but they were robbed on 2 separate shots before Jonas Siegenthaler cleared the porch with puck close to the red line. Jack Hughes then went the other way and fired a shot towards Ersson, which was his first save in over 9 minutes.
With 7:56 remaining in the first period, Owen Tippett was tripped up by John Marino, sending the 32nd-ranked power play to work for the first time in the game. The 10th-ranked penalty kill of the Devils made easy work of the Flyers’ power play in the first half, not allowing them to enter the zone, clogging the neutral zone, and forcing turnovers in the Flyers end. They continued to do the same in the latter half and even sprung Marino out of the box but he slowed up thinking he had reinforcements behind him, only to realize they were wearing Orange jerseys.
Then with 2:27 left in the period, Kieffer Bellows was taken down by Damon Severson, sending the Flyers back to the power play. Once more the Devils made easy work of the penalty kill and survived the latter half of the period as they entered the intermission tied. The Flyers held an 11-6 shot advantage and kept the Devils to 3 shots in the final 17:49.
SECOND PERIOD
2:59 into the second period, the Devils broke the deadlock with a point shot from Siegenthaler with traffic in front of Ersson. The Devils’ Miles Wood won a board battle after taking the body from Nick Seeler and Patrick Brown and then set up Siegenthaler’s whose simple shot from the point had to go through 3 bodies before it reached Ersson.
The puck was deflected off the tip of the blade of Justin Braun with Nathan Bastian and Nick Seeler in the vicinity as well. The goal was Siegenthaler’s 3rd of the season and first in 17 games.
Then with 11:25 remaining in the middle frame, Jack Hughes scored his 3rd goal of the season against the Flyers after Siegenthaler stripped Scott Laughton of the puck at the blue-line of the Devils end.
With the Flyers having tired legs after being pinned in their own zone with the Devils swarming, Owen Tippett muscled his way through the neutral zone before depositing a pass to Laughton at the blue-line with several white jerseys on him. Laughton tried making a move but Siegenthaler read him like a book, stripped him of the puck, and banked a pass off the boards to Hughes who was all alone with Ersson before sliding the puck through his five hole for his 36th of the season. Rasmus Ristolainen who was on his way towards the bench for a line change wasn’t able to get back in time with Hughes’ speed.
2 minutes and 10 seconds later, Nick Seeler dropped the gloves with Michael McLeod in a very spirited affair that had the Prudential Center on their feet.
The Devils continued to pour it on with shot after shot, scoring chance after scoring chance, shift after shift. The Flyers were left flat-footed on several occasions, were being forced to make a quick play at either blue-line, and were being hounded by the Devils strong forechecking. By the second commercial break of the period, the Devils had a 12-5 shot advantage with the Flyers being held to 1 shot on goal in a stretch of nearly 7 minutes while the Devils had scoring chances from Nico Hischier, Yegor Sharangovich, Dawson Mercer, and Tomas Tatar.
Then with 5 minutes left in the period, Dougie Hamilton was high-sticked by Morgan Frost and even though the Flyers were able to kill the penalty, the Devils’ relentless pressure kept mounting and with only a minute remaining, Mercer scored his 19th goal of the season after being set up magnificently by Hischier.
Frost turned it over at the neutral zone as he tried to make a move in the middle. He got bodied off the puck and Mercer tried pushing it forwards to Hischier, but the puck bounced all the way behind the goal-line and into the corner. Ristolainen was beaten by Hischier who looked behind himself before reaching the puck, analyzing what to do with the puck once he got it. Unfortunately for Samuel Ersson, Justin Braun allowed Mercer to walk right into the slot and finish the play off and extended his goal streak to 6 games.
The Devils tacked on 3 goals, outshot the Flyers 16-6 in the period, and held the Flyers to 1 shot in the final 11 minutes and 0 shots in the final 6:36. Ersson made some big saves keeping the score close, but the Devils offense was too much for the Flyers defense to contain as evidenced by a very dominant second period for New Jersey.
THIRD PERIOD
The Devils continued to pour it on early in the third after Nico Hischier snapped a shot high over the blocker of Ersson to make it 4-0 only 4:05 into the period. The Devils quickly retrieved the puck as it exited the zone and Marino’s pass to Hischier jumpstarted his opportunity as he dangled the puck around the stick of Ristolainen and then up top on Ersson for his 24th of the season.
1:10 later, Dougie Hamilton made it 5-0 after Ivan Provorov bumped Nathan Bastian into Ersson, pushing him out of his crease, and allowing Hamilton’s shot to find the open cage for 17th of the season. Jonas Siegenthaler also picked up his 2nd assist of the night and 3rd point in total.
The Devils’ relentlessness continued after they made 6-0 after a highlight-reel play by Jack Hughes to set up Jesper Bratt for his 24th of the season. Hughes came into the Flyers zone with speed, made a spin move on Nick Seeler before threading the needle with a backhand pass while on his knees to Bratt who was at the side of the net for an easy tap-in.
Then 2:11 later, Nathan Bastian deflected a Kevin Bahl point shot after being in and around the crease all game. He came close on the 1st goal of the game, he was pushed into Ersson on the 5th goal of the game, and finally got his stick on the puck for the 7th goal.
The Philadelphia Flyers turned out another ugly performance, disappointed and let down their goaltender yet again, as they end the month of February going 2-7-1 and losing 7 of their last 8 games.
It was always going to be a tall task against the vaunted New Jersey Devils and they were without Travis Konecny, James van Riemsdyk, and Cam York, however their performance was tough to watch and they were not able to trouble Akira Schmid, who collected his first career NHL shutout.
UP NEXT
The Flyers are off until Wednesday night when they host the New York Rangers at Wells Fargo Center in their final game before the trade deadline.
