Photo Credit, Jeffrey T. Barnes, Associated Press
The Philadelphia Flyers entered this matchup taking on the Buffalo Sabres in the midst of three-game losing streak and without arguably their two most impactful players in Sean Couturier and Carter Hart. Both are currently injured on a day-to-day basis and there’s no definitive timeline as to when they may return.
With that came an even taller task for the Flyers to try and defeat a Sabres team that is 3-1 in their last four games played. Despite the Flyers missing two crucial pieces to their lineup in Couturier and Hart they rose to the challenge and played one of their most complete games of the season to date in a decisive 5-1 victory over Buffalo.
The Flyers came into this matchup with the goal of replicating certain positive trends present within their game from the two prior outings taking on Carolina and Buffalo. Although they lost three games leading up to this matchup they’ve made far more controlled zone entries over the last handful of tilts. While also outshooting their opponents, as well as, creating large quantities of scoring chances.
Philadelphia continued doing the things that saw them outshoot the Sabres 40-15 on Wednesday evening in Friday’s matchup. A crucial factor in being able to do so was the aggressiveness the team played with and their ability to transition the puck up the ice quickly in an efficient manner.
Such habits in a team’s game can lead to continued levels of success and they’ve been something the Flyers have shown through large stretches in their first 11 games. Even though Philadelphia was unable to capitalize on many of their scoring chances created against Carolina and the Sabres they did not let that frustration set in and played in an up-tempo manner on Friday evening.
Most importantly, the Flyers got off to a fast start and were up 2-0 only 91 seconds into this outing. Considering the trend of slow starts in the past three games against the Ducks, Hurricanes and Sabres, having a better start was likely something emphasized by Flyers head coach John Tortorella and his staff.
During the postgame press conference Tortorella mentioned that a focus for the team was to continue playing how they did Wednesday night, in a game where they handedly outshot the Sabres.
The quick start allowed the Flyers to establish their forechecking early and the pace of play the team is looking to implement this season. Pushing the puck up ice quickly and making aggressive decisions with the puck when possible is the type of game this team is looking to achieve often.
Scott Laughton scored the first goal of the game for the Flyers. The play started due to an elusive zone entry from Joel Farabee. From there Brink and Laughton exchanged passes and Laughton wristed it by Luukkonen to put the Flyers up 1-0. Only seconds afterwards AHL veteran Louie Belpedio scored his first NHL goal to put the Flyers in full control of the game early.
After that point, the Flyers continued to outplay the Sabres for large stretches. In situations where Buffalo did put together some good shifts the Flyers would respond with forechecking shifts of their own.
Specifically, Buffalo strung together a few shifts in a row where they had the Flyers defending before the Garnet Hathaway goal occurred. In that situation the Flyers did not let their opponent continue to control play but responded with a hard-working shift that resulted in a goal to turn the momentum back in their favour.
One other important factor in the Flyers win was their ability to capitalize on odd man rushes in this game. For example, both Bobby Brink and Travis Konecny managed to score on their breakaway opportunities.
When you can take advantage of those types of scoring chances and capitalize it bodes well for a team’s chances of succeeding in a game. Whereas over the three-game losing streak prior to this win the Flyers were having difficulties putting the puck in the net as those chances arose, while their opponents did not.
Lastly, after struggling in limited action this season goaltender Sam Ersson played well in this matchup. He settled into the game nicely after dealing with low shot volume from the Sabres early on.
Most notably, Ersson made a sprawling cross crease save at the end of the second period to keep the score 4-0 heading into the third. The young netminder is going to be relied upon much more heavily with Carter Hart dealing with a mid-body injury. Seeing him have a strong showing is a positive for the Flyers and demonstrates Ersson’s game is trending upwards.
Final Thoughts
Overall, the Philadelphia Flyers played one of their best games of the entire season so far in this 5-1 victory taking on the Sabres. Additionally, the team did not stray from their playing style throughout the prior 10 games to do so. The Flyers played very similarly to the games against Carolina and Buffalo earlier in the week and did not divert from that process.
In those games there were large stretches of play where the Flyers were controlling puck possession and creating several scoring chances. Unfortunately, that was not resulting in goals being scored for the team.
However, they were playing in a way that if sustained there was no doubt, they were going to start finding the net with more regularity. Which happened to occur while taking on the Sabres this past Friday.
This seems to be a building block type of win for the Flyers because they are looking to execute this style of play on a nightly basis and were successful in doing so against Buffalo. They also managed to close out this game in the third period and that is something the team can build upon. Especially when they have struggled to close out games in certain circumstances (when playing Vegas, Carolina, last Buffalo game) up to this point in the early season.
With the Flyers playing the Los Angeles Kings on Saturday at 7:30 PM the team has a quick turnaround ahead of them. Ultimately, we’ll see if this strong play can carry over into tomorrow nights game on the second half of a back-to-back.
Postgame Interview Clips and Audio
John Tortorella:
Scott Laughton:
Louie Belpedio:
Sam Ersson:
