The Philadelphia Flyers have been playing pretty good hockey recently. One of their only bumps on the road was a 4-1 loss to the Columbus Blue Jackets two weeks ago. This was the perfect opportunity for the Flyers to take revenge, as the Jackets were playing without Sergei Bobrovsky in net, and without two of their top defensemen in Jack Johnson and David Savard.

As in the previous matchup, the Blue Jackets came out at the Flyers with a lot of jump. They opened the scoring with a goal just after a power play had expired. The Flyers played pretty well thereafter, but spending ten-plus minutes shorthanded hurt them as Columbus scored another power play.  A third period comeback salvaged one point for the Flyers, before falling in a shootout as is all too familiar.

 Game Flow

Goals:

0 – 1. Saad (Dubinsky, Connauton). PHI on-ice: 21, 25, 28, 3, 55

0 – 2. Murray (Foligno, Hartnell). PHI on-ice: 14, 24, 15, 22

1 – 2. Laughton (Read, Schultz). PHI on-ice: 20, 21, 24, 55, 82

2 – 2. Voracek (Couturier, Gostisbehere). PHI on-ice: 14, 24, 93, 22, 53

Forwards

The numbers look pretty good across the board.  Of note, the fourth line had a much better Corsi than usual, and got the Flyers on the board with a third period goal by Scott Laughton. Jake Voracek survived an injury scare on a questionable hit by Brandon Dubinsky to score again and lead the team in Corsi against his former team, although that whole sequence ended with Wayne Simmonds sitting in the box for 17 minutes after standing up for Voracek. This bit into Simmonds' ice time, as R.J. Umberger temporarily moved up a line during the penalty.

The Bellemare line was the only line underwater on the night. They saw less ice time than usual, and not a single offensive zone faceoff.

Defense

Luke Schenn returned to the lineup tonight and played with Shayne Gostisbehere. He played almost five minutes killing penalties, but lagged behind his teammates on 5v5 Corsi. This night was a bit unusual for the Flyers third pair, as the Blue Jackets took advantage of the last change and forced them to face higher quality competition than usual.

Otherwise it was generally a strong night for the Flyers defensive group. Radko Gudas had fewer 5v5 minutes than his peers, but only because he logged so many minutes on the penalty kill. 

Marc Naples is a contributor to Flyerdelphia and Sports Talk Philly. Follow him on Twitter@SuperScrub47.