What a glorious weekend it turned out to be in Philadelphia, with the Philadelphia Phillies defeating their bitter rivals in the Atlanta Braves in the National League Divisional Series, the Philadelphia Eagles going into their bye week with a perfect 6-0 record after taking down their bitter rivals in the Dallas Cowboys, and of course the Philadelphia Flyers starting the season with a perfect 2-0-0 record.
The New Jersey Devils and Vancouver Canucks aren’t top-tier teams just yet but if the betting lines were to be believed and if the pundits were to be listened to, the Flyers weren’t supposed to win either games. They played as close to a complete game as you can get with the talent available to them and in doing so they received spectacular performances from the likes of Kevin Hayes, Travis Konecny, Ivan Provorov, and Carter Hart.
As it seems to happen quite often, the October schedule for the Flyers features a lot of Western Conference hockey mixed in with some Floridian teams, and now staked with a 2-0-0 record, they are going to be put to the test early as they go on the road to face the Tampa Bay Lightning tonight and the Florida Panthers tomorrow. Following their trip to Florida, they’re staked with another back-to-back but this time on Saturday in Nashville to face the Predators and then at home to face the San Jose Sharks on Sunday.
To finish off the month, they play host to the Panthers again with 3 days of rest in between and then the Carolina Hurricanes over the weekend. Heading into November they are faced with another back-to-back situation, this time on the road against the New York Rangers and the Toronto Maple Leafs on the 1st and 2nd respectively.
The schedule makers did the Flyers no favours (again) as they are tasked with 3 back-to-backs, 2 of them on solely on the road, and 5 of the 6 games are against vaunted playoff contenders in just the first three weeks of the season.
Heading into their games against the Lightning and the Panthers, the Flyers and specifically John Tortorella will be hoping that they continue playing his system and improve their power play after a lackadaisical effort before Tony DeAngelo potted the first Flyers goal with a man up in the second period on Saturday.
The Lighting are currently 1-2-0 as they fell on the first night of the season to the New York Rangers, then defeated the Columbus Blue Jackets, before being taken down by the Pittsburgh Penguins. They are also without the services of Anthony Cirelli and Zack Bogosian still, but nevertheless they are still the same team that advanced to the Stanley Cup Finals in 3 straight years and possess a lethal offensive unit.
The Florida Panthers underwent a lot of changes from trade deadline to puck drop as they acquired Claude Giroux and Ben Chiarot only to lose them in free agency, and then traded Jonathan Huberdeau and MacKenzie Weegar for Matthew Tkachuk. Their goaltending duo of Sergei Bobrovsky and Spencer Knight are rather expensive and inconsistent, which aided in their other decisions, but nevertheless they are still equipped with Aleksander Barkov, Sam Reinhart, and Aaron Ekblad and currently sit at 2-1-0 on the season.
From there, the Flyers play against the two teams who starred in the NHL Global Series on the 7th and 8th of October in the Predators and the Sharks. Juuse Saros, Roman Josi, and Filip Forsberg are going to prove to be another tall task to overcome before facing a Sharks team that the Flyers have historically not fared well against – winning only 4 of their last 29 head-to-head matchups.
Travis Konecny leads the team with 3 goals and 4 points so far, James van Riemsdyk, Kevin Hayes, Tony DeAngelo, and Ivan Provorov each have 3 points, and Carter Hart is 2-0-0 with a GAA of 2.00 and a .940 SV%. The veterans are playing with a purpose, the young kids are playing for more than a roster spot, and so far the bounce-back candidates are shining.
Hart allowed 2 goals on the first 3 shots in the first 15 minutes of the game on Saturday before bouncing back by making the next 27 saves. They were rather soft goals to allow as well and it put the Flyers down 2-0 as they held a shot advantage of 13-3 at that moment. However, as the Flyers started to score their own goals, Hart was shutting things down on his side of the ice and eventually helped the team ice the game with several key stops while the Canucks had a 6 on 4 advantage. He also allowed a few soft goals against the Devils on opening night but shut the door in the second period with 15 saves and a combined 26 saves on 27 shots in the final 40 minutes.
The top pairing of Provorov and DeAngelo has looked sublime and even though it’s only been 2 games, it might be the most promising facet of their 2-0-0 start. Provorov tallied 2 assists, 3 shots, was a +4, had 5 hits, and recorded 10 blocks against the Devils in 22:02 and then added another assist, 6 shots, was a +1, had 4 hits, and played 23:41 against the Canucks. Meanwhile, his partner in DeAngelo recorded 2 assists, 1 shot, was a +3, and played 23:46 against the Devils before playing a team-high 27:11 and scored the a power play goal to open their scoring against the Canucks.
In just 2 games, Provorov looks better than he did all of last year and looks a lot more confident and filled with poise and that goes hand in hand with finally having a good dance partner instead of the usual flip-flopping of bottom rung defensemen.
Tortorella has them playing differently and playing with fire – something that has been missing for ages. If the Flyers can pull off a victory or two against the Floridian teams, that would be a huge confident boost not only for the team, but for the fanbase as well. Two sets of back to backs in the same week is an oddity, there’s going to be a lot of travel in between, and maybe even some personnel changes along the way.
However, the resilience in the first two games shone, the tenacity and compete level was apparent, and it was a rather pleasant and fun experience when considering the 4-5 months of apathy we had to endure last year from December to April.
