Coming in to Tuesday’s game, the Flyers were ready to go full force on the ice at the Wells Fargo Center against the Devils after last night’s brutal overtime loss against the New York Islanders. Unfortunately, the New Jersey Devils did not cooperate and dominated the sluggish Flyers. Towards the end, the Flyers had some momentum but they ended up one goal of tying the game up at four to force overtime.
Just 9:52 in to the opening period, the Devils got on board with a beautiful backhand shot by Michael McLeod from a pass from Ty Smith to make the score 1-0.
With 8:07 left in the opening stanza, the Flyers went on a power play in result of Devils Ty Smith interfering with Jakub Voracek. The power play was successful as Joel Farabee got things going with a wrist shot goal that was assisted by Ivan Provorov and Jakub Voracek to tie the game up at one.
The Devils went on a power play with less than 2 minutes left in the first period because of a Travis Sanheim holding penalty. A minute into the power play, the Devils scored on a fantastic wrist shot by Kyle Palmieri (assisted by Jesper Bratt and Janne Kuokkanen) to give the Devils the 2-1 lead.
Three minutes in to the second period, the Flyers had a great chance when Sean Couturier hit the post, but they could not tie the game. 9:32 into the second period, the Devils’ Yegor Sharangovich got a good look as he snapped the puck toward the Flyer goal and the puck trickled past Carter Hart to give the Devils a 3-1 lead.
With less than thirty seconds left in the second period, the Devils took a three goal lead as Yegor Sharangovich passed it to Ty Smith and then Ty Smith passed it to Travis Zajac who tapped the puck in the goal. The Devils led 4-1 going into the third period.
Less than 10 minutes to play, the Flyers got one going as Travis Konecny made a snapshot which bounced off of the Devils goalie MacKenzie Blackwood and Sean Couturier tipped the puck in for the goal to cut the Devils lead to two goals, 4-2.
The Flyers cut the lead to one goal as Sean Couturier (his second of the night) waisted the puck into the goal (assisted by Jakub Voracek and James van Riemsdyk to make the score 4-3. Unfortunately, the Flyers kept the pressure on but could not get the equalizing goal and were edged by the Devils 4-3. The Flyers are now 15-12-4 on the season.
“Tonight was very frustrating,” Claude Giroux said following the devastating defeat. “We still think we can make the playoffs.”
NEXT UP: The Flyers are back in action on Thursday, March 25th against the 14-13-4 New York Rangers at the Wells Fargo Center for a 7:00 PM EST puck drop. The game can be seen on ESPN+ and NBC Sports Philadelphia.
