Photo Credit: Rob Windfelder
Flyers Head coach John Tortorella accurately described this past Tuesday night’s match-up against Montreal as being “low event”. Tonight’s game against the Ottawa Senators was the exact opposite of that. In fact, it was a veritable smorgasbord of events. It was Bizarro World hockey from start to finish. Tortorella was not behind the bench for the game. He chose to watch from upstairs with Interim General Manager Danny Briere. Associate Coach Brad Shaw was behind the bench for the Flyers. See, it’s weird already and we’re just getting started.
The wrong foot
Very early in the game James van Riemsdyk hit the post on a breakaway. Tony DeAngelo hit the other post with the rebound. At that point no one could’ve predicted just how rare a Flyers shot on goal was going to be in this game. The Flyers were decisively outplayed during the entire 1st period. It was brutal. The Senators were keeping the Flyers bottled up in their own zone for extended periods of time. At one point the Flyers went two and a half minutes without being able to clear the puck to make a line change.
Austin Watson scored an unassisted goal after prolonged pressure in the Flyers end. It was the type of game where you found yourself counting white jerseys to make sure the Flyers were not actually shorthanded. As the final seconds of the 1st period were ticking down the Flyers were like a boxer at the end of a bad round just trying to stay vertical till the bell finally rings. They were outshot in the period 17-2.
Claude Giroux
Let’s take this opportunity to address the 1,000 pound gorilla in the room. It is always going to be weird seeing Claude Giroux wearing another team’s jersey. Someday Giroux will retire from whichever team he happens to be on at the time. From that point on he will be remembered as one of the Flyers all time greats. Until then it’s always going to be “a thing” when the Flyers play against him. You can pretend it’s not, but it is. It’s like being at a party and your X walks in with a date. You can be as cool as you want about it but you will probably be aware of exactly where they are the entire night.
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That being said just in case you didn’t notice Claude Giroux this happened: Ottawa dumped the puck high in the air from their own goal line to the Flyers blue line. It took a high bounce that caught Ivan Provorov by surprise. He attempted to kick it out of the air as it went by him. Who shows up but Claude Giroux. He doesn’t try to settle the puck down. In fact he hits it back up in the air and forward with his stick not once, not twice, but three times as he kept moving towards the Flyers net. It was like he was dribbling the puck upside-down with his stick. The third time he directed the puck at the net and it hit Felix Sandstrom right in the forehead with it.
The Flyers kept plugging away and were playing about as good as you can without actually shooting the puck at the other team’s net. Tony DeAngelo scored a power play goal from the top of the circle 2:51 into the 2nd period. Felix Sandström was holding it down in the Flyers in his second consecutive start. Ottawa kept piling up the chances and Sandström kept knocking them away. Tim Stutzle finally put in a rebound of a shot that hit several players and the crossbar before landing on his stick with everybody out of position.
Physicality
This was a very physical game for both teams. There was no shortage of guys crumpled up on the ice after being driven into the boards. At one point Cam York went up the ramp after taking a hit that clearly rung his bell. Things kept simmering and the hits kept coming. It was only a matter of time. Finally Joel Farabee squared off with Alex DeBrincat. Farabee was on his way to setting a franchise record for most punches taken to the head without being able to get an arm free. Eventually he did. He stuck with it and got a good shot in, pulled DeBrincat’s helmet off, and landed on top.
Less than a minute later Austin Watson was ready to give it a go with Nick Deslauriers. This turned out to be an absolutely disastrous decision on Watson’s part. Holy cow did Nick let him have it. For some reason Mark Kastelic chose to follow Deslauriers all the way to the penalty box afterwards chirping at him the whole time. Finally Nick turned around and settled the score with him as well. It’s not often you see a player get into a fist fight on the way to the box to serve a fighting major with a completely different player. …And winning both fights. The officials decided to give Nick the rest of the night off for his efforts.
Twilight Zone
Shane Pinto added a goal for the Senators before the period was over. This left the Flyers going into the 3rd period down 3-1 after being outshot 27-5. Claude Giroux scored his 27th goal of the season on a breakaway at 2:28 and it looked like the Flyers might be done for the night. The Senators had a three goal lead with 15 minutes left in the game and the Flyers had apparently called a cease-fire. But in this “high event” game it seemed like almost anything could happen. And then it did.
Don’t touch that dial
The Flyers who literally set a new franchise record for least amount of shots in a game scored three unanswered goals. First Cam York returned to the game and scored unassisted at 5:22. Then Rasmus Ristolainen fired a 90 MPH slapshot from the point that hit Noah Cates in the pants and went into the net. To cap it off Travis Sanheim slid a pass by Giroux to Owen Tippett who netted his 23rd goal of the season. Unbelievably the Flyers were headed to overtime tied at foyr after being outshot 44-11 in regulation.
O.T.
Felix Sandström was clearly the difference in this game. It is totally to his credit that the Flyers even had a chance. However this life can be full of hard knocks. Sandström made a tragic mistake handling the puck behind the net in overtime that cost them the game. Alex DeBrincat put the puck past a diving Sandström after intercepting it from him and winning the race to the front of the net.
Extra Credit: Waiting to see an updated list of injuries for both teams. It seemed like Ottawa lost another guy every time they scored a goal. Tippett got banged up in overtime. It was a battle.
