Philadelphia Flyers offense finally erupts in 7-4 win over Wild

The Philadelphia Flyers offense finally came through and helped the team avoid a two game losing streak in defeating the Minnesota Wild.

After displaying a losing effort in their last contest, the Philadelphia Flyers looked to bounce back and faced a Minnesota Wild team who were coming off a loss of their own as well.

Carter Hart received his third straight start from Interim Head Coach Scott Gordon and opposed Devan Dubnyk in-net. Dubnyk had a record of 17-15-3 record, with a 2.62 Goals Against Average, and a .914 save percentage. He let in a total of five goals in his last start and the Flyers offense had to take advantage by putting more pucks on-goal.

Minnesota received the game’s first power-play after Wayne Simmonds couldn’t convert on a chance in front of the net and eventually capitalized on it early in the first. Jason Zucker snuck the puck by Hart on a rebound attempt and made it a 1-0 game. Joel Eriksson Ek extended their lead to two just moments later, quickly putting the Flyers in a two goal deficit.

Philadelphia would get one back thanks to James van Riemsdyk deflecting a Jakub Voracek point shot on the power-play to net his ninth goal on the season. This also extended his point streak to three games, continuing his great play as of late. The new look, five forward power-play unit failed to score on two opportunities later through the period, but JvR bailed them out with another deflection goal for his second on the night to tie the game for the Flyers after one.

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Marcus Foligno broke the tie less than three minutes into the second on a pass from Eric Staal, putting the Wild ahead 3-2. Philadelphia made sure that lead was short lived in the form of Nolan Patrick’s sixth tally of the season to make things even. The 2017 second overall pick put a third deflected shot passed Dubnyk, breaking a 25 game goal-less drought in the process.. There’s no denying he’s struggled through most of this year and it was good to see him finally have a shot find the net.

Patrick went on to score his second tally of the game and Simmonds slammed home a Scott Laughton pass late in the period, giving the Flyers a 5-3 lead heading into the third. This was easily one of the best offensive performances the team has showcased since the eight game losing streak began but still needed to seal the deal in the final 20 minutes of play to get in the win column.

Alex Stalock replaced Dubnyk at the start of the third, with the 32 year-old goaltender allowing five goals on 20 shots in two periods of work. There was some speculation as to whether or not Ryan Suter scored halfway through the third, but the referees determined that there was no goaltender interference on Hart and it put the Wild within one.

Simmonds would net his second goal of the evening not long after and JvR eventually tallied an empty net goal for a hat-trick to win the game, 7-4. This marked the first time since December 8th that we’ve seen a six goal effort from the Orange and Black offense. Hopefully, this will spark more consistent performances in the scoring department from the entire squad as the season rolls on.

Philadelphia is now 17-23-6 on the year. Next game is Wednesday against the Boston Bruins.