Date Published: 11-9-2022
Photo Credit: Rebecca McCormick
How Swede it is!!!!! Your Philadelphia Flyers are 8-3-2 on the season, and if the season ended today they would be in the playoffs. How crazy is that Flyers fans, and who would have predicted that before the season began?
What a crazy game it was for the Flyers, even though they won 5-1. Joel Farabee tallied is 100th career NHL point on Wade Allison’s third goal of the season, while Lukáš Sedlák not his first goal as a flyer, but his first since February 18, 2019. John Tortorella has preached he needed more goal scoring, well enter a goal from an unlikely source in Sedlák.
Noah Cates continues to play well as he notched the game winner, while registering an assist later in the contest. Owen Tippett and Travis Konecny got in on the party as well, there’s more to that story coming later. Let’s start with a Swede on Felix Sandström.
He became the third Swedish netminder as a Flyer to earn a victory, more importantly this was the 114th victory by a Swedish netminder in a Flyers uniform. Sandström made 27 saves on 28 shots faced, which was good enough for a .966 save percentage.
Felix is very good at moving laterally from post to post, and he covers the bottom of the net well. His glove hand was hot, as the St. Louis Blues tried to go high glove side a lot last night.
“Sandy has given us some good minutes,” Tortorella said. “He hasn’t found a way to win. We gave him some run support tonight. He made some big saves when the game was still who knows where it was going to go. He has worked hard. I am happy for him because he gets results. He made a couple of key saves at key times; it was a 5-1 game. When a goalie makes a few key saves you never know where it turns to if those pucks go in.”
“It was fun to see the guys and how they care for me. Battled hard for me today, so I am really happy,” Sandström said smiling after explaining his first career NHL victory. On one special night he had a reason to smile, Felix stepped up in a big way and did what a backup Goaltender was supposed to do, after the starter in Carter Hart was ill and could not play.
Owen Tippett and Travis Konecny
Tippett is really playing some good hockey, and making some good defensive plays. His back checking is top notch, it is defensive awareness has really grown. However, he is producing offensively in a big way, while netting two goals and one assist in the past three games played.
Owen is starting to find his niche at the NHL level, and that’s what it’s taking a good coach in Tortorella to find his way. He now has three goals and two assists on the season in seven games played.
Travis is playing the way he played when he made the All-Star game in 2020. He really is having an All-Star caliber season again, and Konecny now has five goals on the season.
It’s unreal what good coaching does for a player, as someone in the score more even though he led the team and points last season with 52. Now he leads the team in goals (5), points (14), Power Play Points (6), while he’s second on the team in assists (9).
Konecny is energized, motivated, and skating well, “We’re getting out of our end cleaner,” Konecny said “We’re forechecking cleaner. We’re above the puck. When everyone buys into the same thing, it really goes a long way. You can see it. We just keep working hard, keep doing the things that they’re preaching to us, and it’s paying off for us.”
This has turned in to being a better season than most expected for the flyers, to include myself. Not only are they playing motivated and competitive hockey, they’re fun to watch again, that is something that Torts is doing well. Making the Flyers fun to watch again.
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