PHILADELPHIA FLYERS VS.
VEGAS GOLDEN KNIGHTS
OCTOBER 13TH, 2018 – 1:00PM EST
Flyers fans at the Wells Fargo Center were treated to a much better effort in the team’s second home game. Four days after being blown out by the Sharks by a score of 8-2, the Orange and Black skated one of their best games of the young season. Both teams kept the pace fast and the intensity high but, for the better part of the game, couldn’t solve either goaltender.
In the end, Brian Elliott broke before Marc-Andre Fleury. In the 58th minute of regulation, Cody Eakin fired a wrister past the Flyers keeper for the eventual game winner. Fleury played one of the best games of his career making huge saves throughout. He stopped both Scott Laughton and Claude Giroux on clean breakaways and made a save of the year candidate on Giroux in the final minute with Elliott pulled and the Flyers in full desperation mode. Overall, all the tools were there for Philadelphia on Saturday but Fleury was out for redemption after being pulled in the Knights home opener against the Flyers. Philadelphia falls to an abysmal 2-3-0 and will look to climb back to .500 on Tuesday against the Florida Panthers.
Takeaways:
PROS:
The defense looked much better tonight, managing to hold VGK to just 5 shots through the 1st.
Scott Laughton is emerging as a force to be reckoned with. He’s strong on the puck and smart without it, and managed to escape an injury scare when he collided into the boards on a shorthanded breakaway chance.
Brian Elliott looked steady in net after allowing 8 goals against in his last outing.
CONS:
Oskar Lindblom left the game in the third period and with JVR and Nolan Patrick already missing time, Lehigh Valley might be getting a call soon.
Back below .500 for the second time in their young 2018-19 campaign, the Flyers are flirting with digging themselves into a hole they can’t climb out of this season.
The officiating in the 3rd period was as lopsided as it gets and Philadelphia’s offense just wasn’t good enough at even strength to make up for it.
Lineup:
Claude Giroux – Sean Couturier – Jakub Voracek
Oskar Lindblom – Jordan Weal – Travis Konecny
Scott Laughton – Mikhail Vorobyev – Wayne Simmonds
Michael Raffl – Jori Lehtera – Dale Weise
Ivan Provorov – Shayne Gostisbehere
Robert Hagg – Andrew MacDonald
Travis Sanheim – Radko Gudas
Brian Elliott
Calvin Pickard
