James van Riemsdyk, Carter Hart Lead Flyers Past Florida

The Philadelphia Flyers played host to the Florida Panthers at the Wells Fargo Center.

Trying to earn their second straight win following a 7-2 trouncing of the Washington Capitals on Thursday, the Philadelphia Flyers traveled back to the City of Brotherly Love to face off with the Florida Panthers. On the other side of things, the Panthers were hoping to bounce back from a 3-2 loss to the Pittsburgh Penguins in their last contest to keep themselves well within the Eastern Conference playoff picture. Carter Hart made his return to the crease for the Flyers, opposing Sergei Bobrovsky on the opposite end of the rink.

Florida struck first in the early stages of the second, scoring on their opening shot of the game to put the Flyers in a 1-0 hole. MacKenzie Weegar was responsible for the tally, pouncing on a loose puck in the right circle and beating Hart top shelf for his fourth goal of the year. This wasn’t exactly how Philadelphia should’ve eased Hart in after missing three weeks of action, but alas, nothing is really ever easy with this team. Fortunately, Ivan Provorov found the equalizer later in the frame, sniping a shot from the point past Bobrovsky to make it a 1-1 contest through one period of play.

It wouldn’t take long for the Flyers to eventually take the lead in the second, doing so less than six minutes in thanks to James van Riemsdyk capitalizing on a 2-on-1 rush with Jakub Voracek. Both forwards worked the advantage to perfection, with Jake threading the needle to find JvR on the backhanded deflection for his 16th goal of 2019-20. Travis Sanheim went on to double the Flyers lead, cashing in on a rebound chance with 55 seconds left in the period to make it a 3-1 affair going into the third. Bobrovsky was able to save the initial shot from van Riemsdyk, but couldn’t stop Sanheim in front of the crease, who scored his sixth career goal against the former Flyers netminder.

Each team had their opportunity to score on the man advantage to begin the third, combining for four in the opening 12 minutes, but couldn’t score on any of them to keep Philadelphia’s lead at two. Hart went on to shut the door, saving 11 shots in the stanza to help lead the Flyers to a 4-1 victory due to an empty netter from Claude Giroux. Philly did a tremendous job of not letting Weegar’s goal get to them as they kept their wits about them and scored four unanswered goals in the remainder of the night. My player of the game would have to be split between van Riemsdyk and Hart, who had two points and 30 saves on 31 shots against the Panthers this evening.

The Flyers are now 31-18-7 on the year. Next game is Tuesday against the New York Islanders.