Samuel Ersson gets first career win as Flyers finally win in OT
By Scott Cole
It took eight tries, but the Flyers finally won in overtime. After falling behind by two goals, the Flyers rallied behind rookie goal Samuel Ersson and ended up winning in overtime thanks to a timely go by Tony DeAngelo. The Flyers took the contest by dropping the San Jose Sharks, 4-3 on their first game on a California road trip.
Since being benched, DeAngelo has responded well. He has played in five games since being a healthy scratch. In the first two games, he did not record a point. In the three since he has seven points, a three-game goal-scored streak, and three points in Thursday night’s game.
Ersson picked up his first career win. In his first game, he was chased out of the net by the Carolina Hurricanes in a period and a half but had to return to duty after Carter Hart was injured. Ersson performed well enough in the second part of the Canes game to earn the start against San Jose.
The Flyers finally get the job done in OT with a 4-3 win over the Sharks
Once again, there were some rookie jitters. Tomas Hertl scored the opening goal at 9:38 in the first and would score again in the second on a power play. His second goal broke a 1-1 tie after Travis Konecny scored for the Flyers less than a minute after Hertl’s first score. Ersson would 25 of the 28 shots he faced and looked magnificent after he settled down.
Kevin LeBlanc would score just 52 seconds into the third period. And then has happened recently, the Flyers woke up in the third period and found their scoring legs.
First, Owen Tippett scored his 11th goal of the year after being fed a pass from James van Riemsdyk. With just over two minutes to go in the game and with the Flyers having an extra attacker out, Konecny would fire off a shot from near the blue line. The puck fought its way through traffic and deflected off a Shark defender and tied the game up
In overtime, the Flyers intercepted a pass while the Sharks went off for a line change. With a three-on-one developing, DeAngelo, Provorov, and Tippett were passing the puck back and forth to each other until Provy found DeAngelo who squeezed the puck past a sliding Kappo Kahkonen to secure the victory.
The Flyers will travel to SoCal for an afternoon New Year’s Eve matchup with the Los Angeles Kings. Let’s see if they can close out 2022 with two wins in a row.