Flyers Force OT Late, Pesce Scores Winner

By Kevin Durso, Sports Talk Philly editor 

For a large portion of Monday's game, the Flyers had the better of the play against the Metropolitan Division leaders. The Carolina Hurricanes were playing their third game in four days, and the fatigue was starting to show. 

But the Flyers are also finding ways to lose games, and that streak continued. After scoring with under five minutes to play to tie the game, Brett Pesce got the game-winning goal with 18 seconds left in overtime to hand the Flyers a fifth straight loss, 4-3, at Wells Fargo Center.

The Flyers came out firing, taking the first seven shots of the game and holding Carolina without a shot for half the period. The Flyers also had the only power play of the period, but did not score as both team were held off the board in the opening 20 minutes. 

Shots were 12-2 Flyers after the first period. 

It didn't take long for Carolina to strike in the second. Just 24 seconds into the period, a fortunate bounce came in front to Nino Niederreiter, who scored his 15th goal of the season.

The Flyers answered just 35 seconds later. Gerry Mayhew picked up a rebound and banked it in off a Carolina defender to even things up at one just 59 seconds into the period. It was his sixth goal of the season and fourth in his last six games.

Carolina did eventually get the push later in the period and took the lead back at 12:13. A centering pass from Andrei Svechnikov was directed toward the net by Teuvo Teravainen and deflected in off the shin pad of Nick Seeler to make it 2-1. 

Through two periods, shots were 22-15 Flyers.

The Flyers managed to tie the game at 5:19 of the third period. A nice play by Isaac Ratcliffe on a wraparound drew the attention of the Carolina defense. That allowed Patrick Brown to be open at the other side of the net for the rebound, putting home his second goal of the season in his first game back in the lineup since Jan. 8.

Less than two minutes later, Carolina was back on top. Vincent Trocheck scored on a rebound to make it 3-2 with his 14th of the season.

With 4:53 to play, the Flyers got the game tied again. A shot by Travis Konecny was stopped, but the rebound went off the skate of Oskar Lindblom and through the legs of Frederik Andersen and in to tie it up at three. 

That forced overtime, where play was wide-open with chances going both ways. Finally, with 18 seconds remaining, it was Pesce with the game-winner off the rush, going top shelf on Martin Jones. 

Andersen made 38 saves on 41 shots in the win. Jones made 27 saves on 31 shots in the loss.

Trocheck finished with a goal and an assist. 

The Flyers get right back at it on Tuesday night, taking on the St. Louis Blues at 7 p.m.

Box Score

Scoring Summary

1st Period

• No Scoring

2nd Period

• CAR Nino Niederreiter (15) (Jesper Fast, Jaccob Slavin) 0:24
• PHI Gerry Mayhew (6) (Justin Braun, Ivan Provorov) 0:59
• CAR Teuvo Teravainen (13) (Andrei Svechnikov, Sebastian Aho) 12:13

3rd Period

• PHI Patrick Brown (2) (Isaac Ratcliffe, Rasmus Ristolainen) 5:19
• CAR Vincent Trocheck (14) (Martin Necas, Ian Cole) 7:15
• PHI Oskar Lindblom (7) (Travis Konecny, Travis Sanheim) 15:07

Overtime

• CAR Brett Pesce (4) (Trocheck, Jordan Staal) 4:42

Game Statistics