Three Standout Players For Flyers In Win Over Hurricanes

These three players stood out the most in the Philadelphia Flyers win over the Carolina Hurricanes.

After dropping their four-straight game in a loss to the Florida Panthers on Tuesday, the Philadelphia Flyers finished out a two-game road trip by taking on Carolina Hurricanes at the PNC Arena. The Flyers took the first meeting between these two squads, beating their Metropolitan Division opponent by a score of 4-1` earlier this month and looked to take a 2-0 lead in the season series with a win in this one. Brian Elliott received the start from Head Coach Alain Vigneault, opposing former Flyers netminder Petr Mrazek on the opposite end of the ice.

Things certainly could have gone better for the Orange and Black to start the first, allowing two goals less than five minutes into the frame to put themselves in an early 2-0 hole. Travis Sanheim turned the puck over in his own end, giving Sebastian Aho his 11th goal of the year as he sniped home a shot from the slot while Teuvo Teravainen cashed in on the power-play opportunity due to a tripping minor from Jakub Voracek. Voracek took two penalties in the 20-minute frame, continuing his poor play for the team as of late.

Thankfully, Philadelphia was able to find their barrings and rebound from the bad start, Travis Konecny set up Claude Giroux with a beautiful pass to put the team within one and Ivan Provorov blasted a point shot past Mrazek on the man advantage to tie the game at two following one period of play.

The Flyers ended up taking the lead early in the second, thanks to a shorthanded tally from Morgan Frost, Bay-Bay! Eh, I guess it doesn’t have the same ring to it as “Adam Cole,” but still, how about Frosty, gang?! The young centerman took a clean faceoff win from Giroux in the Canes zone and caught Mrazek off guard with a sneaky one-timer for his second goal in as many games. Carolina went on to dominant the stanza with a total of 19 shots on net, but Elliott kept Philly afloat and ahead by one entering the third with his play between the pipes.

Lucas Wallmark tied the game back up with a goal in the early stages of the period, which was pretty predictable, to be honest. The Canes took advantage of another defensive zone turnover from the Flyers and went tic-tac-toe in front of the crease to give Wallmark an empty net to shoot at for his third tally of 2019-20.  Philadelphia would regain the lead a few minutes later as a result of Frost assisting Giroux for his second goal of the contest, which eventually pushed the Flyers to a 5-3 victory as Kevin Hayes scored an empty-netter. This snapped a four-game losing skid for Philadelphia and was their first regulation win since November 5th.

One player who far and away stood out to me tonight was Konecny. The man they call TK was all over the ice against the Hurricanes, creating chance after chance in the offensive zone. This was especially true in the first 20 minutes as the 22-year-old winger tied for the team-lead in High Danger Scoring Chances For and total Scoring Chances For at even strength with two and three in the period, according to Natural Stat Trick. Konecny also had some teammates capitalize on those opportunities, finishing the game with two assists, though one of them was on power-play. The former first-rounder is now averaging over a point-per-game again on the season and could very well continue to do so with more performances like this one.

Another player who shined this evening was Giroux. The team captain came out of his scoring slump in a huge way, making his mark on each and every Flyers goal en route to a four-point performance. Giroux actually scored as more points in this game than he posted in his previous seven contests, which goes to show how dominant the new father was against the Hurricanes. Though his, Konecny’s, and Frost’s underlying numbers at 5-on-5 weren’t good in the slightest, they all still found a way to get on the scoresheet, which is what matters most in the end.

Speaking of Frost, how can I not mention the kid tonight? I mean, really, there’s no way I’m not going to talk about him because he’s been the absolute best since arriving from the AHL. As I mentioned above, the rookie forward netted his second goal in the same amount of games tonight and assisted on Giroux’s second tally of the game, showcasing his nice set of mitts on each play. Frost became just the sixth player in NHL history to score two goals in his first two games and is the only player to do so in 10 years, per NHL Public Relations. That seems good, and while he likely won’t be able to keep this kind of pace up, it’s still fun to see the young skater produce in his brief time at the NHL level.

The Flyers are now 11-7-4 on the year! Next game is Saturday against the Calgary Flames.