Photo Credit: Len Redkoles/NHLI via Getty Images
The Vancouver Canucks come into Philadelphia looking to kill the excitement the Flyers fans have for the 2021-22 season. The Flyers are already marred by injuries early on and the excitement has taken a hit since the optimism of the off the offseason. With injuries to key players Kevin Hayes, Wade Allison, Rasmus Ristolainen, Samuel Morin, and Tanner Laczynski the Flyers already find themselves semi-short handed. Additionally, newcomers Patrick Brown and Zack MacEwen are both unable to play for the home opener. The positive sided of that, is opportunity can now be handed to underdog Max Willman, a player who’s making his NHL debut after working his way up from ECHL to the NHL in just a few short seasons. Without a doubt this is a classic feel good story, that shows that hard work pays off. One thing was very evident about the nights game in the stadium, is that the fans showed up and were as loud as can be. Not since the playoffs have the fans been this excited for hockey.
The Flyers came out to play in the first period. With physical aggression and consistent shot attempts. They made it seem like they were ready to put last season behind them. Even with the injuries the Flyers just came out looking like the deeper club, with all three defensive pairings carrying the play and all forward lines generating chances int he offensive zone. The Flyers drew the first penalty as Travis Konecny’s aggressive first period paid off. However, it was the Flyers second powerplay unit that scored the first goal of the year seconds after the end of the powerplay. Joel Farabee, continued his trend of looking like a future forty goal scorer and got on the scoreboard early. This is a very nice change of pace from last season, as the second powerplay unit was completely ineffective. The Flyers generated 14 shots to Vancouver’s 5, but Carter Hart never looked rattled and came up big when the Canucks managed to get a chance on net.
In the second period the Canucks came out with much better energy, as expected. They looked outmatched in the first period, but that is difficult to sustain for sixty minutes. They scored early on a Flyers breakdown, as shot beat Hart clean from the right hash-marks by Vasili Podkolzin. More problems early on as Travis Konecny took a high sticking penalty to continue to give the Canucks momentum and they took advantage of it. Just like that the Flyers lost all of their good will and went down 2-1 early in the second. The Flyers did respond with a strong powerplay of their own, but came up empty handed, allowing the Canucks to gain more momentum. The Flyers were heavily outshooting the Vancouver at this point, but still found themselves down. Only a few minutes later Ivan Provorov, who was having a strong game, took a delay of game penalty, to give Vancouver another powerplay opportunity. After an early brilliant setup on the penalty kill by Cam Atkinson to setup Nate Thompson for a breakaway, the Flyers took a too many men penalty to go down to a five on three, doing themselves no favors. They managed to survive this, but the Canucks continued to gain momentum. They finally got one back after Cam Atkinson scored a goal from inside the slot. Moments later, more bad luck continued as Hart gives up another weak goal, not realizing the puck was under him. This period reminded us all of how fragile defensively this team can be. The period ended with a penalty on Max Willman, something the team did not need heading into the third period.
The Flyers started off the third period looking to right the wrongs of the past as they worked to kill off the Max Willman penalty early on. At this point the stadium was much quieter than it was in the first and felt like hope was almost gone. The Flyers were getting some pressure, but not enough for sustained pressure and no goals to show for it. The Flyers almost walked away without anything to show for their efforts. However, a strong start turns into an awful second period and ends with a bang. After a somewhat lifeless third period, the Flyers were able to get on the score sheet late with two goals in the final three minutes of the game. First a power play goal by Travis Konecny after drawing the call on Oliver Ekman-Larsson, which they scored just seconds off the draw. This gave the team just enough time to pull the goalie and go six on five. And when all felt lost, Captain Claude Giroux came up with a monster late period goal, setup by Sean Couturier, to send it into overtime.
“It was great. That was one of the best goals I’ve scored. The guys and fans were excited.” – Claude said that the fans were electric
A wild overtime with back and forth chances, but Carter Hart ended up being the difference maker as he was able to make several big saves late in overtime. Hart gave his team a chance to take it into the shootout and try to walk away with two points. The shootout has not necessarily been the Flyers strongest suit and it showed as the Flyers were stopped on the penalty kill on both attempts and Hart was not able to shut the door on either of the Canucks attempts. Both Elias Pettersson and then JT Miller were able to beat Hart with nice moves to solidify their away victory. A disappointing end, to a wild game. The Flyers didn’t play well enough to walk away with a regulation win, but they showed the work ethic to fight back in this one. One big thing that stuck out was the issues on the penalty kill. If they want to make this an epic season, they must fix their penalty kill woes and be able to shut down teams while shorthanded. It’s easy to see how the Flyers could have won this game without giving up so many goals on the powerplay and how a sloppy second period lost them the game and almost both points.
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