After a devastating loss in overtime to a strong Washington Capitals team this past Saturday (May 8), it was a different game for the Flyers as they hosted the New Jersey Devils for their season finale game at the Wells Fargo Center Monday evening.
The Flyers shined offensively after they fell behind 2-0 in the first period. The Flyers then scored four unanswered goals to win 4-2 in front of their proud faithful. Before the game Brian Elliott was honored by the Flyers organization for playing in his 500th career NHL game this past Friday night. He was given a watch and a commemorative stick for his honor.
Just three minutes in to the opening period, the Devils got on board as Nico Hishcier made a beautiful backhand pass across the ice to Pavel Zacha, to which Zacha wristed a shot to the right side of the goal tp give the Devils the lead at 1-0.
Two minutes later, the Devils got another goal when Janne Kuokkanen slid in a wrist shot near the left face off circle and past Flyers goaltender Brian Elliott to put the Devils up 2-0.
Joel Farabee got things going for the Flyers when he scored 13:44 into the first period to cut the Devils’ lead in half.
Midway through the second period the Flyers tied the game up at two on a goal by Sean Couturier that eluded Devils netminder Scott Wedgewood. This was by far the best assist I have personally ever seen from Claude Giroux. Giroux made it look easy as he made a kick-pass with his skate and Giroux nailed it in on the left hand side of the goal.
12:25 into the third period, Claude Giroux passed to Sean Couturier who set up James van Riemsdyk for a tip in power play goal to help the Flyers take the lead, 3-2.
With 3:52 left, Flyers jumped on the Devils by two goals, as Joel Farabee got a tip in from a shot by Kevin Hayes to make the score 4-2, which happened to be his 20th goal of the season. The best is yet to come for Farabee, as he had a stellar Sophomore season with leading the team in goals (20), and tallied 38 points, “I think going into the season I never really expected it to happen (20 goals), but I think, personally, I’m proud of myself,” Joel Farabee said following the game. “I put a lot of work in this summer working on my game. It feels good that that paid off.”
The Flyers finish 25-23-8 on the season as they get the 4-2 victory over the New Jersey Devils in their final game of the 2021 season, “Obviously again, by no means did we live up to expectations this year,” James van Riemsdyk said postgame. “It was an up and down season, with probably more down than up obviously with where we’re at right now. I don’t know. Again, you want to try to go in and have some sort of positive note going into the offseason, obviously it’s a bitter taste where we didn’t make the playoffs and get a chance to accomplish more of the goals that we had. You still got to process the season and stuff like that. We’ll probably do that over these next couple of days and go from there to try to figure everything out.”
“I plan to play,” Brian Elliott said as he plans to return for another season in the NHL next season. “I feel like I have a lot left to give. I feel like I’m playing really good hockey and health wise I had another really good year where I didn’t really see the training room once. It’s nice to feel that way. Whatever happens, happens. This league, whenever you don’t make the playoffs there’s going to be changes through your lineup or staff or whatever. You just have to roll with the punches. I’d love to stay here, obviously and keep searching for that cup. That’s kind of out of my control and I just try to let my play kind of speak for itself. Having a pretty good record this year for the team record, I’m happier than maybe if it was the other way around.”
