Lately it has seemed the Philadelphia Flyers luck really turned. They were getting some favorable bounces, timely saves and the results were falling in their favor.
The result was their first three-game winning streak in nearly a year. To extend the streak to four against the New Jersey Devils, they would have no such fate on their side.
The Devils opened the scoring in this one. A harmless backhand tied up Michal Neuvirth, and the Flyers found themselves down 1-0. Immediately thereafter, the Flyers had to kill off a penalty on a dubious call. The Flyers took control from there, scoring a quick power play goal and suffocating the Devils attack the rest of the first period.
Just when it looked like the Flyers might see calm waters on the way to a win, the Devils scored an early third-period goal. The goal came just seconds after the Flyers killed another penalty, and was mostly the result of bad luck. A big shift from the Bellemare line again gave the Flyers the lead, only to see it slip one more time in the last minute with a power-play goal with an extra-attacker on for New Jersey.
Finally, the Flyers were able to claim two points from this game after Matt Read showed a ton of patience scoring on a 2-on-1 break in overtime. The Flyers saw their penalty killing streak end, but their winning streak continue with a 4-3 final win over the New Jersey Devils.
Game Flow
Goals:
0 – 1. Matteau (unassisted). PHI on-ice: 14, 17, 24, 15, 22
1 – 1. PPG, Simmonds (Voracek, Giroux). PHI on-ice: 10, 17, 28, 93, 53
2 – 1. PPG, Giroux (Voracek, Gostisbehere). PHI on-ice: 17, 28, 93, 15, 53
2 – 2. Palmieri (Elias, Cammalleri). PHI on-ice: 10, 21, 28, 22, 55
3 – 2. Bellemare (VandeVelde, Medvedev). PHI on-ice: 76, 78, 93, 55, 82
3 – 3. PPG, ENG, Cammalleri (Stempniak, Kennedy). PHI on-ice: 28, 76, 15, 23
4 – 3. 3v3, Read (unassisted). PHI on-ice: 14, 24, 15
Forwards
As usual, the Giroux line took on the tough matchups against the Devils' best line and defense pair. In those nearly 10 minutes of ice time against top competition, the Giroux line put up a pretty Corsi of about 80 percent. No goals, however.
The second best news came from the Bellemare line, which had one of their best games since Jake Voracek joined the line. They had some great shifts against the Devils third line, and scored a key go-ahead goal in the third period. They also drew the penalty, on which the Flyers got their first goal of the game on the power play. Lastly, Voracek narrowly missed a three-assist night as Chris VandeVelde and Evgeny Medvedev took the two assists on Pierre-Edouard Bellemare's goal.
Unfortunately, tonight was the end of the Couturier line's dominant streak. They played a lot of minutes in tough starting positions, but their Corsi doesn't look good on paper. Truthfully, they didn't concede too much — the Matteau goal against was simply bad luck — but they didn't generate shots either.
Defense
The Flyers again were forced to have new pairs due to the suspension of Radko Gudas. Luke Schenn was promoted, but his first game with Michael Del Zotto didn't yield great possession. Schenn was actually terribly unlucky to be -2 in this game, mostly due to bad bounces.
Medvedev had a nice night. He played significant minutes, mostly against the Devils Top-6. He also picked up another assist and had some clever plays. At times you can tell he's still adjusting, however, as he has a few nervous moments in his own zone.
Marc Naples is a contributor to Flyerdelphia and Sports Talk Philly. Follow him on Twitter@SuperScrub47.
