Philadelphia Flyers beat Coyotes behind Giroux’s three point night

The Philadelphia Flyers finished their four game west coast road trip as they took on the Arizona Coyotes.

Looking for their seventh win on the year, the Philadelphia Flyers hoped to bounce back from a 4-3 overtime loss against the Sharks in San Jose as they faced the Arizona Coyotes in their west coast road trip finale.

Calvin Pickard made his second straight start in-net for the Flyers. Alex Lyon, who was called up by the team Monday morning, backed him up as Brian Elliott was out of the lineup with a unspecified injury. Elliott will be examined by the Flyers team doctor when they return to Philadelphia. Darcy Kuemper opposed Pickard for Arizona. Kuemper had a 2-1-0 record on the season, with a 1.34 Goals Against Average and a .957 save percentage.

Arizona began the game buzzing in the Flyers zone, but couldn’t find the back of the net. The Flyers had two horrific turnovers in their own zone from Ivan Provorov and Jordan Weal. Pickard bailed them out as he stood tall and kept the game scoreless. Claude Giroux scored the game’s first goal, and gave the Flyers a 1-0 lead halfway through the first. Travis Konecny provided the screen to block Kuemper’s vision and give Giroux his fifth goal of the season.

Kevin Connauton would trip Wayne Simmonds later in the period and gave the Flyers the first power-play of the game. Niklas Hjalmarsson took a penalty with just four seconds left in the man advantage, giving Philadelphia another opportunity to take a two goal lead. This would cost the Coyotes, as Shayne Gostisbehere netted himself a power-play goal and gave the Flyers a 2-0 lead after one period of play.

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Oskar Lindblom took an interference penalty to begin the second, giving Arizona their first power-play of the evening. It didn’t take long for the Coyotes to capitalize, as they scored just 15 seconds into the man advantage on a goal from Alex Galchenyuk. Robert Hagg took a tripping penalty just seconds later, putting Arizona back on the power-play. The Flyers penalty killing unit eventually killed off the penalty after some pressure from the Coyotes.

Philadelphia got a chance on the power-play after Galchenyuk took a holding penalty on Simmonds, but couldn’t beat Kuemper this time around. Scott Laughton would give Arizona their third power-play of the period after the Coyotes dominated in the opposing zone. The Flyers killed off the penalty thanks to a couple of nice saves from Pickard and kept it a 2-1 game. Sean Couturier regained the lead for the Orange and Black, scoring his fifth goal of the year late in the period to make the score 3-1.

The third period started with the teams trading chances on both ends of the ice, but neither could net themselves a goal. The Flyers went on to take a 4-1 lead after Giroux scored his second goal of the game on a great assist from Simmonds. Later on in the period, Christian Folin took a hooking penalty and gave Arizona their fourth power-play opportunity of the game. The Flyers erased the penalty with some strong shorthanded work from the entire unit. Arizona would still find a way to cut the lead to two on a Richard Panik deflection goal.

Lindblom scored an empty-net goal after the Coyotes pulled Kuemper and gave the Flyers a 5-2 victory. Nolan Patrick and he extended their point streaks to four games with the goal, and it was well deserved. Giroux had a three point (2 Assists, 1 Goal) night while Pickard looked solid with a 35 save performance.

The Flyers are now 7-7-1 on the season, and earned points in all four games of their west coast road trip. Next game is against Arizona yet again at home in Philadelphia on Thursday.