It wasn’t what Flyers fans expected after a bright ending last game against the New York Rangers. On Monday, March 29, 2021 it was the opposite as it was obvious that Buffalo was the much better team through the first two periods during Monday night’s match up in Buffalo, NY. The 17 game losing streak Sabres embraced their possessions as they made Flyers goaltender Brian Elliott look lost. The Flyers didn’t give up as they scored four unanswered goals and ended up winning on a beautiful overtime goal by Ivan Provorov.
At the start of the the opening period, both teams were on a mission to get on board first. Buffalo had some good looks but couldn’t score. Flyers were awesome in the defensive zone where they really put pressure on them. Flyers goalie Brian Elliot had a spectacular start to the game with some solid saves.
With 2:19 left in the period, the Sabres got the first goal of the game on a wide open look by Henri Jokiharju as he wristed a shot through Flyers goalie Brian Elliott’s legs for the 1-0 lead.
Just 2:10 in to the second period, the Sabres made it 2-0 as Cody Eakin made a wrist shot which hit the upper part of the left side of the net past Brian Elliott for a goal (assisted by Tobias Rieder and Riley Sheahan).
Brandon Montour snapped a high wrist shot that cruised by Brian Elliott for a goal to make the score 3-0 12:43 into the period. Unfortunately, the Flyers looked dead in the water.
However, the Flyers came out dominant in the third period. Just 1:50 into the period, the Flyers got on board as Kevin Hayes slapped a shot from a pass by Travis Sanheim that beat Linus Ullmark to make the score 3-1.
With 9 minutes left, Sean Couturier set up Claude Giroux beautifully with a wide open space which resulted in a tip in and brought Buffalo’s lead to one, 3-2.
The Flyers finally tied the Sabres with less than two minutes to play in the third period, as Sean Couturier cleaned up a slapshot for the game tying goal at three. This occurred after the Sabres narrowly missed an empty net goal.
In overtime, the Flyers got started early after Giroux stole the puck and Ivan Provorov converted the game winning goal on a beautiful fake and back hand shot through Sabres goalie Linus Ullmark’s legs to win the game, 4-3.
The Flyers improve to 17-13-4 on the season and are on a two game winning streak for the first time since February 27th-28th.
“It’s an honor to play in this league and this organization,” Kevin Hayes said following the victory. “It ultimately came up to hard work (Referring to the win tonight).” “Maybe we should think we are down 3-0 and we would start off better,” Ivan Provorov said last night. “We haven’t played our best yet.”
NEXT UP: The Flyers will go for three wins in a row against the 6-23-5 Buffalo Sabres in Buffalo, NY on Wednesday with a 7:30pm EST start time. You can see the game on NBC Sports Philadelphia.
