Flyers special teams comes alive in win over injury-ravaged Avalanche

The Flyers were going to have a chance to keep up with the Avalanche, at even strength at least. Colorado came in with an injury-ravaged lineup that has been without players like Gabriel Landeskog, Val Nichushkin, and more recently Artturi Lehkonen. They would also go on to lose Nathan MacKinnon during the first period as well. Talk about a banged-up team. This was a big opportunity for the Flyers.

The Flyers had goals from Travis Sanheim, Tanner Laczynski, Tony DeAngelo, Owen Tippett and Travis Konecny. DeAngelo and Tippett’s goal goals came via the power play. It was the first time in almost three weeks that the Flyers had a power play in back-to-back games. It’s also the first time they’ve scored two in a game since April 29th of last season.

“Tonight was real good. TK’s been doing a good job, Haysey real patient on the walls. We gotta shot more, I think we’ve been doing a good job of that and you see what happens. Laughts takes the one shot abd it bounces right to one of our own guys, Tip, and he one-touches it in. So those are the kinda goals we have to get.” DeAngelo said about the power play unit.

And after giving up a few tough goals to the Devils, Carter Hart was absolutely on his game in this. Before the game, Joel Farabee spoke about how the team isn’t worried one bit about Hart. He’s been their best player and has shown a lot of maturity in the way he handles himself after tough situations. While he made numerous huge saves against the Avalanche, it was good to see the Flyers help him out with some much-needed run production, something Tortorella spoke about before the game as well.

“I’m sure Carter felt pretty good and that’s a two, three goal lead. He hasn’t had much of that during the year. The situation we’ve been in this year, it’s hard to be a goaltender with us because we just…he can’t make a mistake because we just have not been able to give him run support. But tonight we find a way, power play kicks in a couple. I’m sure that helped him.” Tortorella said after the game about scoring five goals.

It didn’t necessarily come easy as the Flyers put a lethal Avalanche power play on the ice more times than you want to. But someway, somehow, they killed off four of Colorado’s five chances on the man advantage. Colorado was able to strike just 17 seconds into their first power play as Alex Newhook tipped a Cale Makar shot in front.

“They score right away on the first one, just a tip. But after that I thought we were really good. Guys were making really good clears, kinda stopping the pressure before they got in. They’ve got a ton of skill even with guys out, the ability to get in the zone there. They got in, but once they got in, they didn’t do much after that first goal.” DeAngelo said on the PK going 4/5 on the night.

Mikko Rantanen and Newhook decided to make things interesting as they each scored a goal in the final two minutes of the game. But the Flyers managed to hang on as Konecny added an empty netter, having scored in all three games since his return. And while they come out with the win, there’s still a teaching moment in learning how to close games out. They came out on top in this one, but it may not always go their way. Facing a MacKinnon-less Avalanche team for most of the game certainly helped.

The Flyers have one more game on this five-game homestand as the Washington Capitals comes to town. Philadelphia will look to avenge their 3-2 overtime loss from three weeks ago.