The Philadelphia Flyers earned their 5th win in their last 31 attempts against the San Jose Sharks after completing a third period comeback to tie the game before winning it early in overtime.
Travis Konecny’s point shot was deflected into the net with less than 3 minutes remaining and with the Flyers’ net empty before Tony DeAngelo and Ivan Provorov connected on an odd-man rush in overtime as the Flyers secured their first overtime victory of the season.
Samuel Ersson picked up his first NHL win, Travis Konecny scored a goal and added an assist to his team-leading 34 points, Tony DeAngelo scored the game-winning goal while also adding 2 helpers, Owen Tippett and Scott Laughton scored the 2 third period goals, and Ersson made 25 saves en route to their 4-3 victory.
Flyer-killer Tomas Hertl scored 2 goals and added an assist, while Erik Karlsson added 2 assists as he became the first NHL defenseman since Al MacInnis in 1990-91 to have 50 points in 37 games. This was the third attempt at a late comeback in as many games for the Orange and Black but fortunately the third time was the charm as they were able to actually tie the game with the extra attacker to force overtime.
In their first game back from their lengthy Christmas break, the Flyers entered the Shark Tank with an almost unchanged lineup following 2 narrow defeats to the Toronto Maple Leafs and Carolina Hurricanes. James van Riemsdyk, Morgan Frost, and Owen Tippett remained the top trio with Joel Farabee, Noah Cates, and Travis Konecny not too far behind. Kevin Hayes, Scott Laughton, and Wade Allison completed the top-9 and the fourth line trio was comprised of Nicolas Deslauriers, Patrick Brown, and Zack MacEwen.
The two changes came on the backend with Cam York playing on the top “to start” with Ivan Provorov and Nick Seeler entered the lineup in place of Justin Braun. Seeler lined up with Rasmus Ristolainen while Tony DeAngelo remained with Travis Sanheim on the second pair. Carter Hart was placed on IR yesterday but Felix Sandström returned to the lineup as the backup to his close friend, Samuel Ersson.
FIRST PERIOD
The Flyers’ first shot of the game came 3 and a half minutes into the period but it was a breakaway for Travis Konecny, who came in on the goaltender and fired a wrist shot that was steered aside by Kaapo Kahkonen. Logan Couture turned the puck over to Noah Cates, who read his pass, broke it down, and quickly jettisoned Konecny for the scoring opportunity. 3 minutes later, Konecny then set up Tony DeAngelo on an odd-man rush but Kahkonen made another big-time save to keep the game tied.
Unable to get out of their own zone, the Flyers turned the puck over to the Sharks who ended up firing 4 scoring chances in succession towards the young Swede. Fortunately they were able to survive unscathed, however on the following shift, Tomas Hertl slid into the slot and fired a snap shot past a diving Ristolainen and beat Ersson glove-side. Erik Karlsson – who else – was left untouched and unmarked and was given all the time in the world to set up the Czech forward with a perfect feed from the faceoff dot, 9:43 into the game.
Morgan Frost was seemingly lost in the sauce in the defensive end because he was the only one not covering a White and Teal jersey. Owen Tippett didn’t help the cause either but his man shimmied to the point, while Karlsson was far more aggressive in and around the faceoff dot. It represented Hertl’s 12th goal of the season and also extended Karlsson’s point streak to 11 games.
43 seconds later, Travis Konecny tied the game up with his 16th of the season after he deflected a Tony DeAngelo slap-shot after an offensive zone faceoff win. Noah Cates was tied up on the draw but Joel Farabee quickly corralled the loose puck, sent it back to the point, where DeAngelo ripped a slap-shot without a second thought.
Both teams created several dangerous scoring chances that were mostly steered aside by their respective goaltenders, penalties were missed on both sides as the referees kept their whistles silent, as they entered the intermission tied at 1 apiece with the Sharks holding a 13-9 shot advantage.
SECOND PERIOD
The tempo to start the second period was fast-flowing, however not much substance took place. Lots of end to end skating, offensive zone time, but only a few shots for both sides. Penalties were still not being called until the Flyers’ Cam York was whistled down for a tripping minor 6:57 into the middle stanza. With 29 seconds left on the man advantage, Tomas Hertl scored his second of the game after some nifty passing by the three headed monster of Hertl, Timo Meier, and Logan Couture. Meier received a pass from Couture at the point before fake-shot-passing it to Hertl for a deft deflection past Ersson, 8:29 into the period.
19 seconds later, Nico Sturm, who drew the penalty on Cam York earlier, was called for an interference minor on York, bringing out the 31st-ranked power play against the league’s best penalty killing unit. The Flyers fired 3 shots in the final 50 seconds, however with not much danger behind them as the score remained 2-1 for San Jose.
The temperature of the game really started to heat up after a crunching hit by Travis Konecny late in the first period. There was a lot of pushing and shoving in front of the net, board battles, and chippy plays in the neutral zone, on top of the fact that both teams were porous defensively as there were a lot of end to end scoring chances after the Sharks penalty kill. With Evgeny Svechnikov dancing and weaving his way into the slot, Travis Sanheim was whistled down for an interference minor with 2:51 remaining in the second period.
The first 51 seconds were dominated by the Sharks as the Flyers were unable to clear the puck twice, which allowed them to create chance after chance that culminated into a huge glove save by Ersson in the slot on Logan Couture.
The Flyers were unable to get control of the puck for the first 1:53 as the Sharks peppered 6 shots towards Ersson but he was able to make every save as the Flyers survived the late penalty and headed into the intermission down by 1. After 40 minutes, the Sharks led on the scoreboard 2-1 and on the shot clock 24-19.
THIRD PERIOD
52 seconds into the third period, Kevin Labanc walked into the offensive zone after being perfectly set up by Tomas Hertl and Erik Karlsson before ripping a snap shot top shelf past Ersson from inside the faceoff dot.
Karlsson made a nifty behind the back pass to Hertl to get the puck out of the zone and that assist gave him 50 points on the season through 38 games, which was the most by any defensemen since Al MacInnis in 1990-91 when he notched 51 in the same amount of games.
5 minutes after Labanc doubled the Sharks’ lead, Owen Tippett cut the deficit back to 1 after being set up in the slot by a feed from James van Riemsdyk behind the net for his 11th goal of the season and 6th point in his last 8 games.
Nick Seeler made an aggressive pinch towards a loose puck along the boards before dishing it to van Riemsdyk before the net. It was a pretty big goal after coming close on their previous shift when Travis Sanheim had a scoring chance off the wing that was blockered aside with Joel Farabee sniffing around the blue paint.
With 5:33 left in regulation, Joel Farabee was initially called for a 5-minute major penalty for boarding Kevin Labanc but after further review, the referees overturned the major call and assessed it as a 2 minute minor. The Flyers did a really god job on the kill and even created a few scoring chances, the best of which came off the stick of Noah Cates in the slot that was stopped by the helmet of Kahkonen.
The Flyers pulled Ersson with 2:51 remaining in the third period and they actually found a way to score with the extra man. After the Sharks were called for icing it down towards the empty net, Travis Konecny’s point shot travelled through a maze of bodies in front of Kahkonen and deflected off the glove of a Sharks defender and past the goaltender only 46 seconds later.
The Flyers won another key offensive zone faceoff which allowed Konecny the opportunity to thread the needle with his point shot. They awarded the goal to Scott Laughton as there were 3 players in front of the net who could’ve deflected it in – only 1 of them was wearing orange. Down by 2 early in the third period, the Flyers surged towards another comeback and this time they were able to complete it and send the game to overtime as they looked for their first victory in the 3-on-3 format this season in 8 attempts.
OVERTIME
On a bad line change executed by the Sharks, the Flyers jumped on the error like hyenas and went the other way on an abbreviated 3-on-1. Tony DeAngelo and Ivan Provorov played pitch and catch with a diving defender in the middle before the latter waited him out and passed it to the former for the game-winning goal 70 seconds into overtime.
Provorov forced the turnover and then backhanded the pass out of the zone to Tippett. Tippett then backhanded a pass to DeAngelo who waited, waited, and waited for reinforcements to surge into the offensive zone.
Provorov was coming in with a full head of steam with Tippett acting as the trailer and it was DeAngelo who finished the play by scoring his 7th of the season, while also recording his third point in the game as the Philadelphia Flyers got a rare 2 points in San Jose as Samuel Ersson collected his first career NHL win.
UP NEXT
The Flyers visit the Los Angeles Kings on Saturday at Crypto.com Arena in their final game of the 2022 calendar year.
