If you consider it bad form or a cop-out to question the officiating when breaking down a game then you may want to just skip ahead to start of the 2nd period.
Flyers vs Islanders in New York. 8:23 into the 1st period, while the Flyers are on the penalty kill, forward Ryan Poehling goes streaking into the Islanders zone to win a race for the puck. Poehling retrieves the puck by the hash marks and quickly fires a shot. As soon as he releases the puck he gets leveled by Maxim Tsyplakov. Poehling goes down to the ice and it’s immediately clear that he is in trouble. He is on the ice holding his face. He can’t get to his feet and his bell is definitely rung, big time.
Play is allowed to continue for a few seconds as Poehling lays on the ice in front of the Islanders net. The Islanders break out of their zone with the puck. Finally a whistle is blown as Garnet Hathaway had doubled back to take things up with Tsyplakov. The officials skate towards Hathaway and Tsyplakov as a Flyers trainer comes out to attend to Poehling.
Poehling is clearly injured. After finally getting to his feet he was escorted off the ice by his teammates who handed him off to trainers who assisted him up the tunnel. Play was halted while the hit was reviewed. Multiple angles show Tsyplakov grazes Poehling’s shoulder then the brunt of the contact is with Poehling’s head. During the review the most logical question is: would the penalty be a five minute major because of the contact with the head.
After review there was no penalty called at all. Flyers head coach John Tortorella was livid as he addressed the officials to no avail.
Wait there’s more
When the game resumes the Islanders are still on the power-play. Travis Konecny is attempting to take control of the puck in the slot in front of the Flyers net. The puck comes loose when Anders Lee slashes Konecny across the hands (no call). The puck goes to Brock Nelson who passes it to Bo Horvat at the side of the net. Horvat scores the Islanders first power-play goal in the last 15 games 9:21 into the first period.
A minute later Joel Farabee makes the slightest contact with Maxim Tsyplakov and goes to the box for slashing. Meanwhile Anthony Duclair and Travis Konecny are having a stick fight by the benches and the whistle is lost again. Games like this can get out of control real quick. At this point nobody knows what’s off limits and what’s not.
Luckily the 1st period came to an end giving both teams time for a reset.
The best revenge is on the scoreboard
2nd Period
5:15 Matvei Michkov makes a smart and crafty hesitation on the break-in to keep the play onside. Michkov passes to Farabee who is patient with the puck until Sean Couturier is in just the right spot to receive the pass and knock the puck behind Ilya Sorokin to tie the score at one.
9:29 Samuel Ersson makes a save and the rebound makes its way to Travis Konecny in the neutral zone. Konecny uses his speed to drive into the New York zone. TK hits Garnet Hathaway charging up the slot and Hathaway puts a clapper past Sorokin to give the Flyers the one goal lead. (Hathaway has 3 goals in his last 4 games).
13:41 Travis Konecny is looking for a line change but ends up with the puck on the rush instead. Konecny takes the red line then passes to Morgan Frost. Frost takes the blue line then passes to Owen Tippett at the side of the net. Tippett passes right back to Frost in front and Frost sends it home. 3-1 Flyers.
Revenge is sweet.
Holding on
Thirty seconds into the 3rd period the Flyers got caught in a line change that led to a 2-on-1 rush and a Mathew Barzal goal. The Islanders came out with a renewed intensity in the third. Cam York helped kill the momentum with a wrist shot from the dot that beat Sorokin short-side 5:16 into the final period. 4-2 Flyers.
Things were a bit lopsided for the last half of the period. The Flyers were sitting back protecting their lead. The Islanders were on the offensive. Samuel Ersson played a strong game and the Flyers did a good job keeping the Islanders to the perimeters and clearing the zone.
Anders Lee scored a power-play goal with 2:44 left in regulation. Noah Cates scored into the empty Islander net with 1:12 to go and that’s all she wrote. Flyers win by the final score of 5-3. It was a strong win against a division rival that put the Flyers back at hockey 500 with a record of 20-20-6.
Extra Credit: The Flyers did a fine job of keeping their tempers in check tonight and making the Islanders pay on the scoreboard where it counts. Ryan Poehling did not return to the game. He is listed as having an “upper body injury”. These two teams face each other two more times before the end of this month. I can’t imagine tonight will remain a “forgive and forget” type of situation.
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