Ducks Down Flyers in Home Opener

(Kate Frese/Sports Talk Philly)

By Kevin Durso, Sports Talk Philly editor 

It was a night that started with such energy and ended with a deflating feeling of defeat. 

The Flyers struggled to get offense going against a tight-checking and strong defensive team in the Anaheim Ducks, and fell in the home opener, 3-2, on Thursday night at Wells Fargo Center.

The Flyers and Ducks traded early power play chances, but neither scored in a sloppy start to the game for both teams.

The Ducks capitalized first on a neutral-zone transition. Sami Vatanen led a pass to Jared Boll that split the Flyers defense and forced Ivan Provorov off his feet as he tried to break up the pass. Boll dropped a pass to a waiting Chris Wagner and he fired a shot past Steve Mason to put the Ducks on the board first.

The Flyers entered the second period with a brief power play and got another one just over four minutes into the period. They wasted no time converting to even the score.

A quick cycle saw the puck come to Jake Voracek, who put a perfect pass on the doorstep to Wayne Simmonds for the easy tap in. It was Simmonds third goal of the season.

Midway through the period, the Flyers took the lead from a familiar source of scoring so far this season. Pierre-Edouard Bellemare led Matt Read with a pass and Read put a strong power move on John Gibson to score his fourth goal of the season.

The Flyers had five power play chances in the second period, but scored on just the one. Moments after their last power play of the period, the Ducks made them pay for not taking advantage of the man-advantage. 

Corey Perry ripped a high slap shot to beat Mason at 16:42, tying the game at two with his second goal of the season.

A third period of tight checking and limited shots came to a head when the Ducks capitalized at 11:34. As the Flyers failed to clear the zone, the Ducks just kept throwing the puck on goal and finally a loose puck came to Ryan Garbutt in prime scoring position and he lifted a shot over Mason to put the Ducks on top.

The Flyers are back on home ice on Saturday when they host the Carolina Hurricanes. The opening face-off is set for 7 p.m.

Box Score

Scoring Summary

1st Period

• ANA Chris Wagner (1) (Jared Boll, Sami Vatanen) 11:24

2nd Period

• PHI Wayne Simmonds (3) PP (Jake Voracek, Claude Giroux) 4:52
• PHI Matt Read (4) (Pierre-Edouard Bellemare, Steve Mason) 10:26
• ANA Corey Perry (2) (Ryan Getzlaf, Antoine Vermette) 16:42

3rd Period

• ANA Ryan Garbutt (1) (Korbinian Holzer, Nick Sorensen) 11:34

Game Statistics