The Philadelphia Flyers took a quick trip to St. Louis for their final meeting against the Blues this season. When the two teams previously met in October, the Flyers were victorious. However, the Blues made a few notable changes since the last meeting.
The team hired Jim Montgomery as their head coach a week after he was fired from the Boston Bruins. The Blues also regained their star player, Robert Thomas, who was out for a month due to a fractured ankle.
Before puck drop, St. Louis honored Jordan Binnington, who became the all-time wins leader in net with 152 wins. Binnington was also in goal for St. Louis, while Aleksei Kolosov took his place between the pipes for the road team. Another lineup change Philadelphia made was inserting Egor Zamula back into the game. Zamula was scratched the previous four games. With Zamula back in, Helge Grans came out of the lineup.
Flyers vs Blues game reap
In the first period, Philadelphia was displaying early dominance against the Blues. Hathaway had a wrist shot that Binnington saved under 20 seconds into the contest. However, the choppiness of the game was on full display with icings, offsides, and even a handpass.
Around the halfway mark of the first period, Matvei Michkov displayed his intense hockey IQ when he was trying to drive the puck to the net and saw Tippett to his right. He was able to feed the puck so Owen could ‘tip it in’ behind Binnington. This gave Philadelphia a 1-0 lead and hopefully generated some confidence in Tippett with his fifth goal of the season.
Brandon Saad and Jordan Kyrou had two good shot attempts for St. Louis that Kolosov shut down later in the first frame. While Kolsov only had two wins, his confidence showed early on.
In the second frame, both teams battled, but with the amount of giveaways St. Louis had, the Flyers tried to capitalize on them; however, Binnington was a brick wall and shut down any attempt. Ryan Poehling served any early interference penalty, and the penalty kills unit did well, as always. Philadelphia is fourth in the NHL with the best PK percentage, 84.9%. However, the Flyers did get four minutes of power play time, which they couldn’t capitalize on. Their struggles with the extra man advantage were evident when Brayden Schenn for St. Louis almost scored short-handed.
With a minute remaining, Sean Couturier had a shot on goal that should have gone in, but it was a save of the season from Bennington, shutting down the Flyer’s attempt to take a two-goal lead. After 40 minutes, the Flyers still lead the Blues by 1-0.
St. Louis upped its game in the final frame and came on the ice with much more energy than in the previous two periods. Dylan Holloway tied up the game for St. Louis with a wrist shot above Kolosov’s right shoulder. The Flyers responded and finally gained some momentum offensively as Tyson Foerster scored for Philadelphia less than a minute later.
With time winding down and about two minutes left of the contest, Travis Konency was sent to the penalty box for hooking Kyrou. The Blues also pulled Binnington to give them two extra skaters on the ice compared to Philadelphia’s four. With 18 seconds left of regulation, Jake Neighbours scored for the Blues. The game was now tied 2-2, heading to extra minutes.
This is Philadlephia’s 10th OT of the season. However, it took only a short time for the contest to conclude. Robert Thomas had possession of the puck, but Konency took it away. This allowed Michkov to gain position of the puck, and on the breakaway, he scored for Philadelphia with a backhander. With overtime only taking less than 30 seconds, the Flyers gained two points, which means they still stay in the second wild card position for the east.
Philadelphia heads home and has most of the week off before they face the Florida Panthers on Thursday.
Mandatory Credit: Kyle Ross-Imagn Images
