The Philadelphia Flyers traveled to the Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum and faced the New York Islanders in their second meeting of the season.
Hoping to string together a two game win streak, the Philadelphia Flyers went up against a Metropolitan Division leading New York Islanders team in the final installment of a three game road trip.
Brian Elliott received the start from Interim Head Coach Scott Gordon and faced Robin Lehner. Lehner had a 2.07 Goals-Against Average coming in with a .931 save percentage. He’s been among the league’s best goaltender’s this season, increasing the importance of a good offensive performance from the Flyers.
Nolan Patrick took a heavy shot from an Islanders player to his ear while falling onto the ice early on, leaving the game immediately and also leaving the Flyers with just ten forwards after announcing Jakub Voracek was day-to-day with a lower-body injury. Travis Konecny would avenge his injured friend, scoring his 21st goal of the year to give Philadelphia a 1-0 lead. Radko Gudas made a nice pass to set T.K. up on the rush, earning his 100th career NHL point in the process.
Konecny wasn’t the only Travis to score in the period, as Travis Sanheim snapped a rebound passed Lehner to give the Flyers a two goal lead after one period of play. This goal gave Sanheim the team-lead in points among defensemen, surpassing Shayne Gostisbehere with 29 points this year.
The Flyers continued their good performance on offense with a tally from Scott Laughton, his first in seven contests. Laughton capitalized on another rebound from Lehner, which eventually got him pulled in favor of Thomas Greiss following the third Philadelphia goal. New York put pressure on the Flyers throughout the second, possessing a 24-21 shots-on-goal advantage, but Elliott stood tall and helped give Philadelphia a 4-0 lead after Sean Couturier scored late in the stanza.
Konecny dropped the gloves with Jordan Eberle to start the third, showcasing a good bout between the two, but the young Flyers forward drew and extra two minutes for cross checking and put his team on their first penalty kill. The Islanders were unable to solve Elliott on not one, but two power-play opportunities and were still goal-less through two plus periods. It wasn’t until Adam Pelsche decided to be a big meanie and spoil Elliott’s shutout bid to make the score 4-1. Philadelphia would get the last laugh though, defeating the Islanders by the same said score.
This was an all-around great performance from the Orange and Black, something we didn’t see much of for a good amount of the season. The Flyers brought the offense, Elliott was strong in-net, and the penalty killing unit held their own in this victorious effort. Claude Giroux specifically stood out to me, posting two assists for his fourth multi-point contest in five games. G’s proved that the Flyers team as whole occasionally reads Broad Street Buzz content as well, doing everything that was asked of them in this preview article…
Ok, all jokes aside, it’s always good to see a showing like this from the Flyers. They now sit just five points out of the second Wild Card spot at the time this was written and have proved they can hang with the best off the Eastern Conference in knocking off the Isles.
Philly is now 32-27-7 on the 2018-19 campaign. Next game is Wednesday against the Washington Capitals.