The Philadelphia Flyers exorcised their demons against the New Jersey Devils on Tuesday night as they comprehensibly walloped their divisional foe 6-1. Cam Atkinson scored a hat trick and added an assist, Claude Giroux finished the game as a plus 5, and Carter Hart stopped 26 of 27 shots as the Flyers played one of their most complete games of the season.
It’s been an eventful week as the Philadelphia Flyers have played 5 games in 8 days, including a 3 game road trip in 4 nights, but most importantly under a new head coach. One thing is significantly different with Mike Yeo behind the bench and it’s their aggressiveness on the offense. The Flyers are getting the puck out of the zone with ease and entering the offensive zone with controlled entries instead of the typical dump and chase that never worked.
FIRST PERIOD
The new aggressiveness on offense paid dividends as Travis Sanheim scored the game’s first goal midway through the first period. Something the Flyers rarely did during their 10-game losing streak was make the simple plays and that’s what’s been working under Yeo.
Max Willman dumped the puck in, James van Riemsdyk chased, and got the puck around the boards to a pinching Rasmus Ristolainen who just shot the puck to make a play. An aggressive and pinching Travis Sanheim picked up the loose puck, made a move on P.K. Subban, and found a tiny hole in between the post and pad of Mackenzie Blackwood.
The goal was not only huge for the Flyers as they were 8-2-3 when scoring the game’s first goal this season, but it was also Sanheim’s first goal of the season.
24 seconds after Tomas Tatar and Travis Konecny took coincidental minors, the Flyers and specifically Sanheim and Ristolainen’s aggressiveness gave them an early 2-0 lead. Sanheim got the puck to an open Ristolainen, who had all the time in the world to find a wide open Cam Atkinson on Blackwood’s weak side for the goal. Ristolainen’s strong played continued until the very end of the period, as he was able to disrupt a Devils scoring chance with one second left on the clock with a great stick check.
It was a great change of pace, not only from the 10 game winless streak but also from the previous 2 games against the Devils. 15 minutes into the first period and the Flyers were outshooting the Devils 9-2 and out-chancing them 8-1; the shot total at the end of the first was 13-6 in favour of Philadelphia. A very noticeable player during the first period was Travis Konecny, who seemingly has his mojo and confidence back since the coaching change.
SECOND PERIOD
Not tested much in the first period, Carter Hart was asked to come up huge with several saves on an early penalty killing situation in the second period. He was able to dive and stop Jesper Bratt on a cross-crease one-time opportunity on top of several other chances as the Flyers failed to clear the puck several times.
With the Devils applying more and more pressure, even after the penalty kill, the Flyers needed something to change the momentum and they got in the form of a Justin Braun knuckler. Oskar Lindblom, playing some minutes with Claude Giroux because of Morgan Frost’s departure, had a very good aggressive forechecking shift and was able to get the puck to the point to Braun. With a white jersey incoming, Braun just launched a knuckleball to the net and it kept rising and eventually beat a baffled Blackwood.
Coming out of the first commercial break, the Devils were able to maintain momentum even after giving up a third goal. P.K. Subban scored in similar fashion as Braun with a light shot that beat Carter Hart. After a great first period, Sanheim missed on a pass to Ristolainen that he tried deflecting off the boards. Instead it landed on the stick of Michael McLeod, who found Subban wide open with Nathan Bastian providing a good screen in front of Hart.
With a late power play to potentially cut the deficit to one, the Flyers forced a turnover at the point, to which Ivan Provorov was able to find a streaking Cam Atkinson on a 2-on-1 rush. Instead of passing, he had his head up all the way and blasted a slapshot from the circle past Blackwood for his second goal of the game. It was also his second shorthanded goal of the season, and the Flyers’ fifth shorty of the season.
Two minutes after Atkinson made it 4-1, Oskar Lindblom joined the goal parade as the makeshift second line hemmed the Devils in their own zone again and forced yet another turnover. Tomas Tatar’s pass to Ty Smith was too much for him to handle as it bounced off his blade right to Atkinson. He then found Lindblom all alone in front of Blackwood and he roofed it top shelf to give the Flyers a 4-goal lead on his second goal in a week.
THIRD PERIOD
Akira Schmid made his second NHL appearance in relief of Mackenzie Blackwood at the beginning of the third period. If there was anyone who was to record the first hat trick for the Flyers this season, the odds-on favourite would have been Cam Atkinson, and he did exactly that tonight with yet another spectacular display of aggressiveness and offensive awareness.
Forcing turnovers was the M.O. for tonight’s game and Max Willman, Cam Atkinson, and Claude Giroux finished off some pretty passing plays as Giroux found Atkinson with a perfect pass in front of the net to give the Flyers a huge 6-1 lead.
The rest of the period was what you would have expected from a 6-1 game, with few chances here and there for both teams as things got loosened up. Carter Hart stopped 26 of 27 shots as he played a pivotal role in the early parts of the second period when New Jersey tried to grab momentum.
Cam Atkinson scored a hat trick and recorded an assist, Travis Sanheim and Oskar Lindblom recorded a goal and an assist each. Ivan Provorov and Rasmus Ristolainen each nabbed 2 assists. Justin Braun added a goal, while Claude Giroux, Max Willman, and James van Riemsdyk finished with an assist each. Atkinson and Giroux also finished the game plus-5.
The Flyers finally got to Mackenzie Blackwood tonight as they scored 5 times on 22 shots, while P.K. Subban recorded the lone goal for the Devils. Michael McLeod added an assist while Jack Hughes and Pavel Zacha were a game-worst minus-4. Akira Schmid allowed one goal on eight shots in the third period in relief of Blackwood.
