It was a pretty tight first period, and they blew two leads, but the Philadelphia Flyers stepped up when they had to and now can claim their first three game winning streak since January of last season. The Flyers really seized this game with an 18 shot second period, and fittingly the Couturier line provided the game winning goal.
It wasn't a terribly busy night for the Flyers penalty kill unit, but they extended their streak to 21 consecutive kills as well. All in all, it goes down as a 4-2 win over the Ottawa Senators.
Game Flow
Goals:
1 – 0. Gostisbehere (Giroux, Schenn). PHI on-ice: 10, 12, 28, 23, 53
1 – 1. Smith (Ceci). PHI on-ice: 21, 36, 52, 22, 82
2 – 1. Medvedev (Couturier, Del Zotto). PHI on-ice: 12, 14, 24, 15, 82
2 – 2. Hoffman (Ryan, Turris). PHI on-ice: 10, 12, 28, 3, 15
3 – 2. Simmonds (Couturier, Manning). PHI on-ice: 14, 17, 24, 23, 53
4 – 2. Couturier (Simmonds). PHI on-ice: 14, 17, 24, 3, 15
Forwards
As has been the refrain for the Flyers for several games, the Couturier line put in the strongest performance. Even better, for the second game in a row, this line also put the puck in the net. Wayne Simmonds had an excellent game and scored the game winner, while Sean Couturier added an empty net goal and threaded a nice pass to Medvedev for a three point game.
The Giroux line had a pretty good game, playing against the best the competition has to offer (as usual). It was great patience from Giroux to hold the puck while teammates skated away from the puck and tugged the defenders around the zone, before Giroux found Gostisbehere who blasted in another goal to open the scoring tonight.
The Bellemare line had a few good shifts, and saw quite a bit of the Senators top line. They still don't see too many scoring chances, so it kind of hurts to see Voracek stuck down there.
Defense
It was a night of highs and lows for Evgeni Medvedev. He scored his first NHL goal, which will help to forget what was otherwise a disappointing night. He'll take most of the blame for the Senators first goal for his unforced turnover, and he and Schenn had a really bad Corsi overall tonight. Medvedev got skunked against the Turris line, 0/9 on the Corsi scale.
With Medvedev and Schenn struggling, Hakstol leaned heavily on Del Zotto-Gudas. They got stretched out for 2-on-1s a few times, but generally played pretty well. Gudas in particular had a busy night, including some aggressive hits on the border of a penalty.
Lastly, it was a good night for Manning and Ghost. They still play fairly easy minutes, but if they can put up those possession numbers while Ghost snipes in a goal like tonight, everyone will go home happy.
Marc Naples is a contributor to Flyerdelphia and Sports Talk Philly. Follow him on Twitter@SuperScrub47.
