A two-goal game by Connor McDavid handed the Flyers their first loss in the simulated era.
There weren’t many changes made from the Flyers last game. The only thing we did was put Brian Elliott in net since Carter Hart faced the Minnesota Wild the day before. Sooner or later, however, the team’s goaltending rotation will be harder to predict.
A goal 50 seconds in from Connor McDavid put the Oilers up early. McDavid skated in and around the net. From behind, he managed to send a pass to Ryan Nugent-Hopkins at the point. After playing catch with Oscar Klefbom, Nugent-Hopkins skated towards the middle of the ice and found McDavid in front who spun to grab the pass and one-timed it past Elliott.
Jakub Voracek evened it up off a rebound chance. Claude Giroux skated up the left side and sent the pass to Sean Couturier whose shot was stopped. Voracek hopped on the rebound to tie the game about six minutes in.
Joel Farabee ended up leaving the game after taking a heavy hit in the first period. He was holding his arm. But don’t worry, he’ll be back next game just fine. This is a simulation after all.
Alex Chiasson grabbed the lead back midway through the period. Michael Raffl turned the puck over in the offensive zone as Ethan Bear sent Nugent-Hopkins the other way. Alex Chiasson was able to sneak through both Matt Niskanen and Ivan Provorov. After gathering the puck off the pass, he fired it over the shoulder of Elliott from in tight.
Giroux was called for slashing as the Oilers had Flyers on their heels. They took another penalty shortly thereafter. Travis Sanheim went to the box for hooking 15 seconds later
Nugent-Hopkins scored on the power play to increase the Oilers lead to 3-1. From behind the net, he sent the pass out to Chiasson who immediately sent it across the ice to Andreas Athanasiou. He found Nugent-Hopkins quickly for the one-timer as Elliott couldn’t slide over in time.
Derek Grant cut the lead to 3-2 with less than 40 seconds in the period. Sanheim created the original turnover with a heavy body check. Shayne Gostisbehere played the puck out of the zone to Tyler Pitlick. Pitlick found Grant coming into the zone. Grant passed it over to Scott Laughton and went streaking towards the net where he took the pass back and just got the puck around the skate of Mike Smith for the goal.
Elliott made a big save with about six seconds left to keep the deficit at one goal after the first period.
Travis Konecny had a breakaway opportunity in the second after stealing a pass at the blue line. He had Kevin Hayes open on the other side but elected to shoot as Smith saw it the whole way. And unfortunately, the Oilers made him pay shortly after.
After creating a turnover of their own, Tyler Ennis skated the puck up ice and took it upon himself to score. He fired the shot from the face-off dot that Elliott got a piece before it hit off his arm and went in.
Voracek helped the Flyers climb closer once again as Smith seemingly couldn’t keep control of the puck. Hayes, after getting stuck a bit long on his shift, sent the puck to Giroux. He skated in a bit before taking the original shot. It bounced off Smith and was headed in as Voracek ended up touching it just before it crossed the line for his second of the night.
Couturier went to the box for tripping with less than two minutes left after getting the stick out on Chiasson. Despite a few turnovers and failed clears, the Flyers escaped the period only down one goal. Elliott had to make a few big saves on the penalty kill.
Oscar Klefbom added an insurance goal for the Oilers about seven minutes into the third. After receiving the puck from Riley Sheahan, Klefbom put a few dekes on Elliott before beating the goaltender over the left pad. At this point, there was no reason to pull Elliott as he had actually been a huge reason the game wasn’t out of hand.
Nicolas Aube-Kubel went to the box for tripping a few minutes later which is exactly what the Flyers didn’t want down by two goals. Down by two, the team was extremely aggressive on the penalty kill. But the Oilers cashed in again with only seconds remaining on their power-play. McDavid grabbed his second of the day off a one-timer.
There were too many missed chances for the Flyers as they failed to hit the net and turned the puck over too many times. And not to mention Smith made quite a few big saves to help the Oilers come out on top in the 6-3 victory.
The Flyers would have gotten a few days off before they welcomed in the St. Louis Blues on Tuesday.