The Philadelphia Flyers rallied late to force overtime but that wasn’t enough as Luke Hughes finished off a pass from Jack Hughes for the game-winner. The Flyers fell to 0-9-2 when allowing the game’s first goal.
Joel Farabee was benched after just two shifts and never saw the ice again and Garnet Hathaway was assessed a game misconduct, but the Flyers still managed 48 shots towards the net but Akira Schmid had most of the answers.
After Alexander Holtz and Jack Hughes gave the New Jersey Devils an early 2-0 lead, Morgan Frost cut the deficit back to 1 with a power play goal before Tyler Toffoli scored one of his own in the third period. Sean Walker scored from the point with 5 minutes left and at the tail end of a late power play, Tyson Foerster deflected a Scott Laughton shot to force overtime.
Carter Hart made 31 saves in the overtime loss, and Schmid made 45 saves as the Flyers have now lost 4 of their last 5 games after a 5-game winning streak.
Another night, another divisional matchup as the Flyers welcomed the Devils into the confines of the Wells Fargo Center for their 7th Metropolitan bout in their last 8 games. The Flyers had lost 3 of their last 4 games and decided to change things up a little bit as Marc Staal found himself out of the lineup in lieu of Egor Zamula, Scott Laughton found himself in between of Joel Farabee and Cam Atkinson, and Morgan Frost was centering Bobby Brink and Owen Tippett, and Ryan Poehling returned to his fourth line duties. Carter Hart returned in goal, looking for his 7th win of the season.
As for the Devils, things haven’t gone exactly as planned after last season’s massive turnaround. They were 10-9-1 entering play tonight, had lost 6 of their last 10, and had been dealing with injuries all throughout the season. Jack Hughes and Nico Hischier had missed substantial time before recently returning, Timo Meier remained out of the lineup for the 7th consecutive game, and Dougie Hamilton was ruled out before puck drop. Akira Schmid made his way in goal for his 2nd consecutive start and third time in their last 4 games with Vitek Vanecek struggling to regain form.
FIRST PERIOD
The Flyers allowed the first goal of the game once again after they allowed Alexander Holtz walk in all alone in the slot before ripping one top-shelf over Carter Hart, just 3:10 into the first period.
Travis Sanheim was not in the picture, Scott Laughton was the forward back, and Cam York looked a little passive as they allowed Holtz to stroll into the high danger area. Holtz’s 7th goal of the season was also his 3rd in his last 4 games and all 7 have come at even-strength. As we all know too well, the Flyers were 0-9-1 when allowing the first goal of the game entering tonight.
Sean Couturier was whistled for a high sticking minor with 13:15 left in the first period. After successfully killing the Devils power play, Kevin Bahl was quickly called for a high sticking minor of his own exactly 2 minutes later. 63 seconds into the man advantage, Morgan Frost was called for a tripping minor, negating a power play that was passing as if that was the main objective.
With 4:43 left to play, Jack Hughes finished off an odd-man rush with a perfect shot past the glove of Hart for a 2-0 lead. Couturier was the last man back and Travis Konecny was the trailer with York and Sanheim stuck in the offensive zone. Tyler Toffoli slowed things down before feeding Hughes his 8th goal of the season.
With 3:45 left in the period, Garnet Hathaway was given a 5-minute major penalty after a hard collision with Luke Hughes. The referees were very late in blowing the play dead with an icing call, which prompted Hathaway not to hold up on his check. After a lengthy review, Hathaway was assessed a 5-minute major penalty and a game misconduct.
The NHL’s best power play went head to head with the 11th ranked penalty killing unit of the Flyers that had killed off 25 of their last 26 attempts. The penalty killing of the Flyers kept this game from getting worse as they held the Devils to just one shot on goal in the first 3:45 as they headed into the intermission.
The Flyers held an 8-7 shot advantage and 7-4 edge in hits, while the Devils took 8 of 15 faceoffs and the all important 2-goal lead into the break.
SECOND PERIOD
After successfully killing off the final 1:45, the Flyers put on the pressure and in doing so forced Nico Hischier into a holding minor as he was pinned in the defensive zone without a stick and was looking for a way out. The power play looked dangerous for once, fired. shots on goal, and kept the pressure up.
The game opened up with odd-man rushes coming from both sides but the goaltending was up to the task with Hart putting an exclamation point on Tyler Toffoli’s opportunity as the Devils came very close to making it 3-0.
Hischier found himself back in the penalty box, this time for a hooking minor, 9:34 into the middle frame. Apparently, the third time is the charm after Morgan Frost finished a rebound opportunity in and around the blue paint to get the Flyers on the board.
Tyson Foerster’s initial shot was stopped, Konecny grabbed the rebound, passed it back to Foerster who set up a York one-timer that led to the bouncing puck that Frost was able to bury for his 3rd of the season.
Rasmus Ristolainen was handed an interference minor with 7:07 left to play. 22 seconds into the man advantage, the number one ranked unit came within inches of re-taking the 2-goal lead but Hart made a sensational diving save to keep the deficit at 1.
With just 7.6 seconds left, Luke Hughes sailed the puck over the glass for a delay of game penalty. The Flyers and Devils combined for 39 shots in the period with the former firing 23 to the latter’s 16.
Joel Farabee was benched after skating just 57 seconds in the first period after a costly mistake he made on the first goal. He never saw the ice again through 40 minutes.
THIRD PERIOD
Unfortunately, the Flyers weren’t able to capitalize and shortly after the kill, Frost made the march to the box for a hooking minor. After making the initial stop on Toffoli’s slot opportunity, the offseason acquisition was able to finish the dirty play by lifting it over Hart for his 12th of the season with 15:29 left to play.
With the game winding down, the Flyers trying to pressure, and the Devils doing their best to park the bus, Sean Walker’s point shot with 5 minutes left to play threaded the needle and beat Akira Schmid high glove-side for his 4th of the season.
Shortly afterwards, Jack Hughes was guilty of a hooking minor with just 4:14 left to play. The Flyers continued to increase the pressure but couldn’t beat Schmid to tie the game. However with 36 seconds remaining on the Hughes minor, Konecny was aggressively slashed by Brendan Smith in a retaliation to a cross-check from the forward.
With a 2-man advantage for 36 seconds, Tortorella called a timeout but Akira Schmid seemed to have had all the answers as the Flyers failed to get one past the goaltender for the all-important tying goal.
However, the Flyers didn’t give up and the all-important tying goal came after Scott Laughton – recently brought back into the fold – ripped a one-timer from the point that was tipped by Foerster and rifled through the wickets of the goaltender with just 50.9 seconds remaining in regulation and sending the game to overtime.
OVERTIME
Luke Hughes got the last laugh after the whole Hathaway incident as he finished an odd-man rush with his brother setting him up for the finish only 28 seconds into the extra frame.
UP NEXT
The Flyers are off until Saturday night when they head out to Pittsburgh for the first set of a home-and-home and with their cross-state rivals (7:00pm ET, NBCSP).
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