The Flyers came out of the gate with a ton of jump, finishing checks and firing pucks. They were creating chances and making Devils goaltender Jake Allen earn his keep. Anthony Richard had a nice rush with Sean Couturier. Richard hauled the cargo into the zone and dished the puck off to Coots who fired the initial shot. Allen made the pad save, the captain picked up the rebound and fired again. Allen made the glove save but play was halted to make sure the puck did not in fact cross the goal line.
Moments later the Flyers were on the attack again. Travis Konecny let loose a vicious one timer from point blank range. Allen made the save. The rebound went to the corner where Morgan Frost pulled off a surprise off angle shot that came very close to finding its way.
Tyson Foerster had a highlight-reel rush right up the middle juggling a bouncing puck on his stick to his glove and back to his stick. Foerster barreled his way through the defense and got a good shot off.
The Devils went on the power-play as time was running out in the opening period. They put together a flurry of chances but Flyers goaltender Samuel Ersson stood tall and kept the door shut. The Flyers were sharp in the scoreless 1st period and it was looking like a fun night might lie ahead.
And then…
The 2nd period was a total throwback to the middle periods that the Flyers struggled through earlier this season. So many games it was the second that sunk them. That was surely the case tonight. Spoiler alert: it was an absolute disaster.
The period started with the Devils still on the power-play for 1:28 seconds. Less than a minute in the Devils were on the board. Jack Hughes kept plugging away in front of the Flyers net. Nick Seeler ended up with his back to the play as Ondrej Palat banged the puck past Samuel Ersson.
Adding injury to insult
Owen Tippett took hard open ice hit with his head down from Brenden Dillon. Tippett was not in control of the puck Dillon left his feet and nailed him. There was no penalty call forthcoming. Tippett went straight up the tunnel as head coach John Tortorella blew his top at the on ice officials. Tippett did not return to the game. (no further info was available at the time of this writing)
As you can imagine things got real chippy.. There was a total of 13 penalties called during the course of the period. Things were at a slow boil all night but the lid never officially blew off.
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Luke Hughes broke into the Flyers zone on a 2-on-1 with his brother Jack. Luke held onto the puck and then cleanly beat Ersson with the shot unassisted 6:27 into the period.
The Devils were buzzing around the Flyers net at 12:41 when Nathan Bastian poked the puck out of a mess in front with Ersson out of position from the previous save. 3-0 Devils.
Just over a minute later Dawson Mercer hit the gaping side of the net with Ersson moving side to side slightly behind the play. 4-0 Devils.
This was the end of Ersson’s night as Ivan Fedotov was called in for the rest of the game. Ersson was not solely to blame for the melt-down, it was a group effort. The Flyers have beaten the Devils twice so far this season. This was the Devils chance to exact their revenge against the Orange and Black and they took full advantage of the situation.
One for the road
Just for good measure the Devils scored again less than two minutes into the 3rd period. Jack Hughes scored on a pretty back and forth passing play with Jesper Bratt that left Fedotov covering the wrong side of the net. Final score 5-0.
From that point on it was a formality. It was a fairly uneventful final period. The outcome was already a foregone conclusion. Sure it mattered to Jake Allen who was putting the finishing touches on his shutout. The crowd was enjoying the Flyers pain, but there was no further humiliation to be piled on.
Extra Credit: The Flyers will not have much time to digest this experience. They are right back at it Thursday night at home against the Islanders. This will be another tough game against another Metropolitan Division rival. The Flyers Islanders recent history would be enough to set up the drama for tomorrow night’s tilt but when you ad tonight’s game on top of it all it becomes really difficult to predict what may be in store.
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