Flyers Hold Off Rangers Comeback To Win in Shootout

The Philadelphia Flyers traveled to New York today to face the Rangers on the second game of a back-to-back, losing 6-3 to the Toronto Maple Leafs on the previous night. Though it was a hectic battle that came down to the wire in New York, the Flyers managed to beat the Rangers 4-3 after requiring extra time for the game to have a winner.

1st Period

The Flyers got off to a great start early on in the game with their ability to get lots of pressure in the offensive zone, particularly in the slot and behind the net, and by not allowing the New York Rangers to keep momentum in the offensive zone for too long.

The first goal of the game came from a laser of a slap shot by rookie defenseman Cam York, beating goaltender Igor Shesterkin as if the Vezina Trophy-front runner did not have a chance. It was York’s third goal of the season, and already his second goal against Shesterkin as he scored his first NHL goal against the Rangers goaltender, too.

The second goal of the game came about 50 seconds later when Owen Tippett finally notched his first goal with the Flyers since being acquired in the Claude Giroux deal with Florida. Tippett has shown consistently good play all over the ice since being acquired by Philadelphia and he was finally rewarded for his effort by beating Shesterkin with a beauty of a shot from the slot. This would be the last goal of the period, with the Flyers leading the Rangers 2-0 on the road.

2nd Period

With the Flyers up by two goals to kick off the second, the game shifted to being mostly back-and-forth hockey, with both teams struggling to hold momentum on the attack. Despite the time of attack being short, the scoring chances surely came both in quality and quantity.

However, the second period was a scoreless one as both goalies stepped up and made some amazing saves for their teams. Shesterkin managed to make saves on multiple breakaways while Martin Jones held off the Rangers on odd-man rushes and even a few times on the power play as well. The second came to a close, with the Flyers still leading by two goals to nothing.

3rd Period

The third period contained a lot of the same back-and-forth hockey that was seen in the first few periods. However, it became clear that the Rangers had begun to establish control on the attack once their power play units had finally gotten a few chances to really make Martin Jones work for his saves.

Despite the shift in momentum, the Flyers took a 3-0 lead when defenseman Travis Sanheim sprung Joel Farabee to score his 16th goal of the year. 

But the Flyers began to look very careless with the puck in the defensive and neutral zones and it cost them their three-goal lead when Artemi Panarin scored less than a minute after Farabee to bring the Rangers’ deficit back down to two goals.

Mika Zibanejad scored late in the third off of a rebound that came off of Jones and went right to the front of the net for the Rangers forward to make the score 3-2. Then, less than 15 seconds later, the Rangers scored again when Andrew Copp slipped one by a visibly frustrated Martin Jones, tying the game at 3-3 with three straight unanswered goals. Philadelphia became overly careless by turning over the puck and taking too many penalties, which gave the Rangers more than enough chances to get back into this one.

The Flyers spent the remaining minutes of the third period doing their best to kill off a late penalty and desperately fend off the Rangers attack in the final minute to take it to 3-on-3 overtime.

Overtime

New York continued to earn good scoring chances as the game entered overtime when Philadelphia finally managed to get a few of their own too, thanks to players like Morgan Frost, Owen Tippett, Ivan Provorov and a few others. Frost had the best scoring chance for the Flyers off of a great pass from Tippett and nifty move to slip by the defenders and get a good look on Shesterkin before the goaltender made an incredible save to keep the game going.

With less than 40 seconds in overtime, Travis Sanheim drew a high-sticking penalty and the Flyers went to the power play. They managed to control and move the puck a bit in the offensive zone, but there just was not enough time remaining in the period for the power play unit to really get going and so the game went down to the shootout.

Shootout

PHI: Atkinson – MISS

NYR: Zibanejad – MISS

PHI: Tippett – MISS

NYR: Panarin – MISS

PHI: Hayes – SCORES

NYR: Chytil – MISS

Flyers beat Rangers 4-3 in the shootout.

Though it required hard work, some good fortune, and a lot of persistence, the Philadelphia Flyers earned at least one win out of their back-to-back’s with Toronto and New York.  Next up is Philadelphia’s two-game series against the Columbus Blue Jackets, which kicks off with the Flyers hosting Columbus for the first game on Tuesday April 5th at the Wells Fargo Center.