By most statistics, the Philadelphia Flyers and Nashville Predators were evenly matched in their matchup yesterday afternoon. The difference in the game came down to a few players stepping up and making a play.

The Flyers top nine forwards did not provide any goals, but team defensemen and an AHL call-up scored the big goals. The 3-2 win moves the Flyers in the right direction, although some questions linger about these particular forward combinations.

Game Flow

Goals:

0 – 1. Forsberg (Ribeiro, Neal). PHI on-ice: 24, 78, 93, 22, 55

1 – 1. Del Zotto (Schenn, Giroux). PHI on-ice: 10, 12, 28, 3, 15

2 – 1. McDonald (Medvedev, Laughton). PHI on-ice: 21, 36, 52, 53, 82

2 – 2. Fisher (Forsberg, Josi). PHI on-ice: 14, 17, 28, 3, 55

3 – 2. PPG, Gostisbehere (Giroux, Voracek). PHI on-ice: 17, 28, 53, 93

Forwards

The Giroux line had an okay game, playing against the Predators shut down line with Mike Fisher and the Predators top defense. None of the trio scored, although they opened up the space for Del Zotto to score.

It was also another strong effort from the Couturier line against the Predators top line. They took a minus, however, with the last second, game-tying, empty net goal.

The new fourth line with Nick Cousins, didn't get more ice time than previous games, although they did put up much better numbers. Of course they also scored a big goal as well.

Lastly, the Bellemare line with Voracek had another bad game. This combination is a terrible waste of Voracek's talents. Voracek continues to pick up some points on the power play, however.

Defense

The big story of this game is the huge turnaround of the third pair with Medvedev substituting for Manning. They still played soft minutes in terms of zone starts and quality of competition, but an 80 percent Corsi against soft competition looks a lot better than a 30 percent Corsi against soft competition. And of course none of these numbers capture another Gostisbehere overtime goal.

The top four defensemen had roughly equal assignments, but the Del Zotto pair fared much better against the Nashville top six forwards. Del Zotto also scored his first goal of the season, flashing back to last season with an aggressive push down the left side and sniping one. Del Zotto has been playing better than his stat line of one goal, three assists and -11 suggest, and I suspect we may begin to see more of these plays.

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