The Philadelphia Flyers hoped to earn their second win of the preseason as they took on the New York Rangers.
With two games remaining on their preseason schedule, the Philadelphia Flyers looked to leave the United States with a win before heading to Switzerland, taking on the New York Rangers at Madison Square Garden. Carter Hart received the start in net for the Flyers and opposed Henrik Lundqvist. The future Hall of Fame goaltender entered the game with a 3.00 Goals Against Average and a .919 save percentage and was aiming to obtain his first win of the exhibition campaign.
The first period was a rather eventful one, but not because of offensive output. Both Sean Couturier and Scott Laughton dropped their gloves in the opening 20 minutes, with Laughton standing up for his goaltender after Vinni Lettieri ran into Hart while the young goalie was out of the net. This turned into a power-play for the Flyers, which they failed to capitalize on.
The Rangers also couldn’t score on their first man-advantage of the game, but eventually found the back of the net late in the period as Lias Andersson batted a puck out of the air and passed Hart to take a 1-0 lead. This broke Hart’s preseason goalless streak, which was extremely rude of the Rangers to do, imo. Joel Farabee had a strong performance in the frame, generating three scoring chances, one of which went off of the post because luck hates him, for some reason.
Philadelphia tied the game back up in the second thanks to a goal from Travis Konecny. Kevin Hayes made a beautiful pass to the front of the net and the puck deflected off of TK’s skate, passed Lundqvist, and into the netting. This was Konecny’s second tally of the preseason, tying him with James van Riemsdyk and Carsen Twarynski for the team-high in that category. Farabee continued to shine but luck still wasn’t on his side, as Henrik robbed him for the second time in the game off of a one-time shot.
Both teams were gifted with power-play opportunities early on in the third, but neither could capitalize as the score stayed even. Hart kept the Flyers alive throughout the stanza, making save after save to halt New York from going ahead. Neither side was able to score in regulation and after overtime couldn’t produce a victor, the game headed to a shootout where Mika Zibanejad scored in the third round to defeat the Flyers 2-1.
Though he took the loss, Hart was still impressive in this game. He made 31 saves and, as I previously mentioned, was the main reason the contest went to overtime in the first place. Farabee also excelled for the Flyers, leading the team in shots-on-goal with five on the night.
The Flyers next game is Monday in Switzerland against Lausanne HC.