The Vegas Golden Knights erased a three-goal hole to comeback and defeat the Flyers 5-4 in a shootout. Let’s wrap on all the sights and sounds of the contest:
Andrae’s First in the National
First, the good news: Emil Andrae now has his first NHL goal. After showcasing how creative and smart he is both with and without the puck on his stick, the young Swede defender appears more and more comfortable with each passing game.
“It was awesome,” Andrae said of scoring his first career goal. “I think I’ve been doing a lot of good things offensively and been shooting a lot of pucks and creating a lot of chances. It’s fun to be rewarded.”
Andrae now has four points in 12 games since he’s been recalled since Leigh Valley. Despite there being a bit of a numbers crunch on the Flyers blueline this year, it’s hard to imagine Andrae heading back to the Phantoms.
The Dreaded Middle Stanza
Despite the goal from Andrae and another from Matvei Michkov, the Flyers ended up with some crucial blunders with the puck in the second period. Vegas owned a 19-7 shot advantage and outscored Philly 3-2 in the middle frame as well. That brings the Flyers second period goal differential to a lowly -18 on the season. This has been a problem area for the club all season long and will bury them against better opponents like it did on Monday night.
“You take out seven or eight minutes of the second period, some turnovers along the wall, I thought we played a really good hockey game,” John Tortorella said. “It was one of better showings in the offensive zone in terms of puck movement and moving without it.’
Of course, Tortorella is referencing one of Sean Couturier’s late turnover and ensuing hooking penalty he took to get the puck back. The Knights went to the powerplay and just a few seconds into the man-advantage, Pavel Dorofeyev buried a one-timer from the circle. It was probably a goal Ivan Fedotov would like back, but even so, it’s a bad penalty at an inopportune time from the Flyers captain.
“We didn’t manage the game well,” Sean Couturier said. “We’re up late 4-2 late in the second period, bad turnover by me, penalty, and next thing you know it’s 4- 3 going into the third. I’ll take responsibility for that one.”
The Golden Knights are simply too good of a team to allow back into a game after turning in a pretty game effort in the first and third periods. The Flyers paid for it.
Too Cold To Hold
Much maligned centermen Morgan Frost played arguably his best game of the year in this game, collecting a goal and an assist. The game comes at a good time for Frost, who has been the subject of plenty of trade speculation early this year.
“It’s nice to contribute for sure,” Frost said. “It’s been a struggle in that area for me obviously so hopefully I can building on it because I think that’s my role here.”
Overall, Frost did some quality yeoman’s like work at both ends of the rink in this game as well. He was willing to get to the high danger areas on the ice and was rewarded for that.
They Said It
Sean Couturier on Morgan Frost’s play return to the lineup: “He’s been putting the work in and keeping a good attitude. Since he’s been back, I think he’s been battling and competing. It’s nice to see.”
Emil Andrae on Shaking off the rust after missing a week: “I think I had better energy today. I saw the ice in a different way. I was only out a week, but you can get some rust in that time. I think my skating was better today.”
Morgan Frost on how he works on his two-way play: “I have some lapses defensively sometimes so it’s a bit of balancing act. At the same time, if I’m just focused on playing defense and not making mistakes then I feel that’s when I’m not really doing anything out there.”
John Tortorella on Joel Farabee creating chances, but not scoring: “He’s made some really good plays no matter what line I put him on. Beezer just has to stay with it. He’s the type of guy that can lose confidence very quickly. We just need him to score a couple goals and he’ll be better.”
Did You Know
According to NHL Stats, Sean Couturier scored his 196th career goal in this game and now is within four of 200 in his career. Fifteen others have hit this milestone with the Flyers franchise.
On Deck
The Flyers will take a brief trip to the Music City to take on the Nashville Predators on Wednesday night, 8:00 p.m. puckdrop.
