Photo Credits: FNG’s Rob Windfelder
The Tampa Bay Lightning came into this game 32-23-5 to face the Flyers who were 30-20-7 after dropping two close games over the weekend. The Flyers were without Travis Konecny, Jamie Drysdale, and Rasmus Ristolainen all missing due to injury. Olle Lycksell was back in the line-up as was Bobby Brink who was recalled from the Phantoms for tonight’s game.
Philly vs Tampa Bay
Before tonight Bobby Brink had not scored a goal as a Flyers since the end of December. Called up for tonight’s game Brink wasted no time in making his case for having a spot on “the big team”. At 2:22 of the first period Morgan Frost sprung Brink up the middle. He carried the puck flying into the zone with one defenseman back. He positioned himself left to right and ripped a shot top shelf far side cleanly beating Lightning goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy.
Samuel Ersson was in the Flyers net tonight and was sharp throughout the match. He made a great pad save through a ton of traffic just before stoning Brayden Point right on the doorstep. Everything was going just as planned until 13:43 into the opening period. The Wells Fargo experienced a partial power outage. Some of the lights on the ice, half the jumbotron, and various scattered areas of the arena went dark. The public address system and the official clocks were also downed. Play was stalled while the on ice officials waited for instructions. It became eventually became that nothing was going to change anytime in the near future and the game should resume.
Play went on throughout the rest of the opening period in a very old school home-spun fashion without all the usual fanfare. Just the sights and sounds of good old fashioned ice hockey. A chorus of whistles signaled the end of the period and the teams went off to the locker rooms with the Flyers holding a one nothing lead.
Something’s missing
There was some confusion at the start of the 2nd period the teams were out on the ice ready to go but there must have been a communication breakdown with the officials who did not return to the ice. Eventually somebody showed up to drop the puck and the game resumed. Ersson was playing a solid game in the Philly net when Brandon Hagel tossed the puck from the corner to Nicholas Paul who fired a rocket passed him tying the game at one.
Start Me Up
Halfway through the 2nd period suddenly the Rolling Stones were blasting out of the sound system followed by an apology for the technical difficulties. Not all of the lights returned, the jumbotron stayed blacked out, but the official clocks did come back along with the sound.
Head coach John Tortorella put together some very interesting line combinations during the course of the game. The top line consisted of Sean Couturier, Olle Lycksell, and Nick Deslauriers. Morgan Frost was centering Bobby Brink and Owen Tippett. That line as you can imagine was full of energy and generated some great chances.
Tampa Bay has a very powerful offense, they managed to put together plenty of dangerous opportunities for themselves. Ersson denied Nikita Kucherov on a number of occasions. The Flyers defense did everything they could to keep Tampa’s offense at bay. Garnet Hathaway was blocking shots with total disregard for his own well-being. One shot hit him somewhere in the head and he was right there to block another just seconds later.
Foerster
The Flyers offense exploded in the 3rd period. Tyson Foerster opened the scoring less than a minute in. Morgan Frost tossed him the puck in the neutral zone. Foerster made a tricky between the legs move then put a backhander behind Vasilevskiy.
Sanheim
Then it was Travis Sanheim at 3:08 making it 3-1 in favor of the Flyers. Noah Cates made a great individual effort breaking the puck into the Tampa zone then dropping a pass back to Sanheim who ripped a wrister high glove side. Vasilevskiy may have been screened? He surely did not react to the shot the way you would expect him to.
Walker
At 6:55 Sean Walker confidently strolled in and blew another one past the Tampa netminder making it 4-1. This game was tied at one when the period started and suddenly the Flyers seemed to catch an excellent goaltender having an off night and were taking full advantage of the situation.
As if the entire night was not strange enough Tampa pulled their goaltender to put an extra attacker on the ice with 9:08 left in the game. The Flyers iced the puck a few times looking for the empty net. Ersson was called on to make a cluster of challenging saves as the Lightning were swarming at times during the 6 on 5.
Eventually at the end of an extended possession Tampa had Ersson moving side to side when Steven Stamkos made it 4-2 with four and a half minutes left to go. Vasilevskiy returned to the net for the insuring faceoff.
Cates
The Tampa netminder was on his way back to the bench again for the extra attacker when Noah Cates got control of the puck at center ice. Vasilevskiy continued skating towards the bench even though Cates clearly had control of the puck and was getting ready to tee it up. 5-2 Flyers.
York
Cam York scored the final goal of the night firing the puck the length of the ice from his own goal line and into the open net. The Flyers capped off a decisive victory by the final score of 6-2. It was truly a strange night all around.
Extra Credit: This has been the second unorthodox game in a row for the Orange and Black. They lost by the score of 7-6 Sunday night in Pittsburgh. The Flyers are without their point leader Travis Konecny but have scored 12 goals in their last two games.
