Sean Couturier helps lead Philadelphia Flyers to win over Ducks

The Philadelphia Flyers looked to earn their 25th win of the season in their final matchup with the Anaheim Ducks of the season.

After making a litany of roster moves Saturday morning that included trading forward Dale Weise and defenseman  Christian Folin to the Montreal Canadians and calling-up defenseman Philippe Myers from the Lehigh Valley Phantoms, the Philadelphia Flyers still had a game to play as they hosted the Anaheim Ducks.

Carter Hart received the start and faced Chad Johnson between the pipes. Johnson had a 2-10-0 record coming in, with a 3.42 Goals-Against Average, and a .885 save percentage. The Flyers offense had to take advantage of the struggling journeyman in order to bounce back from a tough shootout defeat in their last contest.

They did just that early on in the first, applying a good amount of pressure in the Ducks zone that eventually led to Phil Varone’s third goal of the season. Michael Raffl won a puck battle behind the net and made a nice pass to set-up Varone in the slot for the game’s first tally. Sean Couturier doubled the lead to two a few minutes later with a great shot that caught iron on the rush. This was Couturier’s 23rd tally of the year and extended his goal-streak to four games.

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Raffl went on to score himself a shorthanded goal and Oskar Lindblom potted his eighth of the year late in the period, suddenly providing the Flyers with a four goal lead after 20 minutes of hockey. While the offense obviously played a huge part in creating the advantage, Hart’s play can’t be overlooked. He made some big saves when it was still a one score game and deserves credit for  continuing to look rock solid in-net.

Philadelphia began the second facing 1:54 minutes of power-play time after Robert Hagg took a penalty late in the first and Anaheim also pulled Johnson in favor of Kevin Boyle. The Ducks capitalized on the opportunity, cutting the Flyers lead to three on their first goal of the game. Interim Head Coach Scott Gordon challenged for offsides, having a very good argument for doing so, but the call was upheld after a lengthy look from the referees. The Flyers received their second power-play opportunity of the day with less than five minutes left in the period, subsequently failing to find a way passed Boyle and the score stayed 4-1 after two.

Hart made two fantastic saves to start the third, not allowing the goal-against in the second to phase his confidence. The Ducks would find a way to get on the board in the third, though, thanks to a third man advantage, but I wouldn’t fault the young net-minder given how hard the shot from Nick Ritchie was to save. Philadelphia responded with a power-play goal of their own off the stick of Nolan Patrick and Travis Konecny ended up scoring a goal of his own late in the period to help win the game, 6-2.

This team went out and took care of business right from the get-go. Couturier, Konecny, Patrick, and two parts of the Flyers fourth line in Raffl and Varone all led the offense to a very good showing with Hart being more than serviceable in the crease yet again. I was very glad to see them rebound from a tough loss in this manner and not let themselves fall back into another losing streak.

The Flyers are now 25-24-7. Next game is Monday against the Pittsburgh Penguins (boo.) in a tune up for the 2019 Stadium Series game later in February.