The Philadelphia Flyers hosted the Ottawa Senators hoping to earn their eleventh win of the season.
In the midst of firing now former General Manager Ron Hextall on Monday, the Philadelphia Flyers still had a game to play as they faced the Ottawa Senators on home ice.
Anthony Stolarz got the start for the Flyers, which was his first of the 2018-19 season. Stolarz went up against Mike McKenna in-net. McKenna had a 0-1-0 record entering this matchup, with a whopping 5.41 Goals Against-Average, and a .862 save percentage. It’s obvious from his numbers that he hasn’t been great to start the season, and it would be key for the Flyers to take advantage.
Travis Konecny kicked the game off scoring the game’s first goal and gave the Flyers an early 1-0 lead. Claude Giroux had a nifty pass to set Konecny up, assisting on the goal with Ivan Provorov. The Flyers were 6-1-1 coming in when scoring the game’s first goal, hoping to improve the already impressive record.
Thomas Chabot went on the tie the game at one a piece, deflecting the puck off of a Flyers player into the back of the net for his seventh goal of the year. Philadelphia ended up killing off two, yes two, penalties throughout the first and the period came to an end with both teams still tied up at 1-1.
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It didn’t take long for the Flyers to retake the lead to begin the second, as Jakub Voracek scored on a shot from the slot to make the game 2-1. Provorov picked up his second assist of the game on the goal, and hadn’t posted a multi-point game since the October 20th victory over the New Jersey Devils.
Radko Gudas doubled the Philadelphia lead on a shot from the point minutes later, netting his first goal of the season on the Flyers third tally of the game. The teams traded scoring chances throughout the second stanza and the Flyers killed off a late period penalty, leading Ottawa 3-1 heading into the third.
The Flyers continued to apply pressure in Ottawa’s zone to start the third, but McKenna settled in and stood tall. Brady Tkachuk scored on a rebound attempt later on and cut the Philadelphia lead to one with just over eight minutes remaining in the period. Tkachuk went on to net his second goal of the period on a deflection shot to tie the game at three.
Matt Duchene put the Senators ahead after batting the puck out of the air from the backhand passed Stolarz late in the period and won the game for Ottawa 4-3.
This was one pathetic third period collapse for Philadelphia. They dominated the Senators for two and a half periods, just to take their foot off the gas with eight minutes to go and surrender three goals in about five minutes. The team once again failed to play a full 60 minute game of hockey and have nobody to blame but themselves for this loss.
The Flyers are now 10-12-2 on the season. Next game is against hated rival Pittsburgh Penguins on Saturday.