Three Standout Players In Flyers Comeback Win vs Bruins

These three players had solid overall performances in the Philadelphia Flyers comeback win vs the Boston Bruins.

Hoping to avoid a two-game losing streak following a 1-0 loss to the Tampa Bay Lightning in their last contest, the Philadelphia Flyers rounded this three-game homestand by playing host to the Boston Bruins at the Wells Fargo Center. Philly was also aiming to take their second straight season series over Boston with a win this evening, as they won two of the three games against their Atlantic Division counterpart during the 2018-19 campaign. Carter Hart got the nod from Alain Vigneault between the pipes and opposed Jaroslav Halak on the opposing end of the ice.

I regret to inform you that the Flyers once again put themselves in a hole early on in this one. Philly allowed the game’s first goal less than five minutes into the period as Anders Bjork put himself in a position to get behind Philippe Myers and made Hart bite hard on a deke to give Boston the 1-0 advantage. Myers turned the puck over in the neutral zone that helped set everything up and, for whatever reason, gave up on the play once Bjork went to the backhand. Very weird stuff. Anyways, Boston went on to extend their lead to two thanks to a power-play goal from David Krejci, but Kevin Hayes would get it back with a PP goal of his own to make it 2-1 after 20 minutes of work.

The second period was a rather eventful one, to say the least. The Bruins got their two-goal lead back in a relatively quick fashion, scoring seconds after a Flyers man advantage expired thanks to David Pastrnak. Philadelphia would, once again, get back within one, as Travis Sanheim tallied his sixth goal of the year to cut Boston’s lead to 3-2. Both teams went ahead and combined for four more goals following Sanheim’s off of the sticks of Charlie Coyle, Krejci, Sean Couturier, and Connor Bunnaman, making it a 5-4 affair heading into the third.

Philadelphia continued to put pressure on Halak as the third stanza started and eventually found the equalizer. Sanheim potted his second goal of the night with a wicked wrister from the slot, knotting everything up at five apiece with around eight minutes remaining. That goal would end up sending things to extras, where Travis Konecny helped complete the comeback with a game-winning goal in round five of the shootout.

Honestly, you should just expect Hayes to be on this list at this point; the guy is a machine. Not only was the power-play goal he scored great, going bar-down with a one-timer from the low-circle, but the I.Q. he showed here was off the charts, as well, knowing exactly where to go on the rush to give himself the best chance to get the shot past Halak. I don’t really have anything else to say that I haven’t mentioned already in previous articles. Hayes is good, Chuck Fletcher was smart in bringing him in, and I was smart for wanting Fletcher to acquire him before the trade going down (definite humble brag here).

Lastly, I’m going to go with a line to round out my group of standouts as I thought the combination of Michael Raffl, Couturier, and Jakub Voracek played very well against the B’s. I’ll be honest with you; I didn’t think this combo would have any success when I initially saw AV’s line rushes this morning but boy, am I glad to be wrong. The trio was one of Philadelphia’s best combinations throughout the night from a statistical standpoint, posting a 68.18 Corsi, 63.16 Fenwick, and a 62.50 Scoring Chances For percentages at 5-on-5, per Natural Stat Trick. Coots and Voracek also combined for five points on the night, capping off what was a fun night of hockey for the City of Brotherly Love.

The Flyers are now 24-16-6 on the year! Next game is Wednesday against the St. Louis Blues on the…*gulps* road.