Flyers Fall Short to Islanders Again in Shootout

By Kevin Durso, Sports Talk Philly editor 

Last Saturday, the Flyers kept their dimming playoff hopes alive for another day by getting a point against the Islanders and then following it up with an overtime win over the Bruins on Monday. Tuesday's regulation loss felt like a dagger with points being of the utmost importance.

The Flyers got one point by getting Thursday's game against the Islanders to overtime, but suffered the same fate as their previous game in Long Island, falling in a shootout, 3-2.

Things didn't get off to a good start for the Flyers. The Islanders were able to get on the board just over six minutes into the game as Ryan Pulock made a nice play to get behind the net and draw all the attention before centering for Brock Nelson, who scored to make it 1-0.

Just 1:03 later, a turnover by Ivan Provorov allowed Leo Komarov to take over and set up Jordan Eberle for a goal, making it 2-0.

Just 14 seconds later, Sam Morin was whistled for a boarding major and game misconduct, giving the Islanders a five-minute power play. The Flyers not only managed to kill off the penalty, but had three shorthanded chances.

Shortly after killing off the major, the Flyers got a break. Nicolas Aube-Kubel took a shot that was heading wide of the net that hit the knob of the stick of Ilya Sorokin and bounced into the net for a goal, cutting the Islanders lead to one.

Through 20 minutes, the Islanders had a 9-7 lead in shots.

Early in the second, the Flyers veterans got the game tied up. A pass from Travis Konecny sent Claude Giroux up the wing in an odd-man situation. Giroux made the pass across to Jake Voracek, who beat Sorokin with a shot to even things up at two.

That was the only goal of the second period, as both teams traded power-play opportunities. Through 40 minutes, shots were even, 15-15.

Early in the third, the Flyers let a power-play chance go by the wayside again. Both teams played a tight-checking game for the remainder of the period, once again going to overtime.

In the overtime, the Flyers had some chances, then took a penalty inside the final two minutes, going shorthanded for the remainder of the overtime. The penalty kill came through again, getting the game to shootout.

After four scoreless rounds, Nelson scored the lone goal for the Islanders and Joel Farabee was stopped, handing the Flyers another loss.

Sorokin finished with 25 saves plus five in the shootout for the win. Hart made 21 saves in the loss.

The Flyers are back on the ice on Saturday afternoon to face the Boston Bruins at 2 p.m.

Box Score

Scoring Summary

1st Period

• NYI Brock Nelson (15) (Ryan Pulock, Anthony Beauvillier) 6:10
• NYI Jordan Eberle (14) (Leo Komarov) 7:13
• PHI Nicolas Aube-Kubel (3) (Unassisted) 13:53

2nd Period

• PHI Jake Voracek (7) (Claude Giroux, Travis Konecny) 3:22

3rd Period

• No Scoring

Overtime

• No Scoring

Shootout

• NYI Jordan Eberle – Save
• PHI Sean Couturier – Save
• NYI Anthony Beauvillier – Save
• PHI Nolan Patrick – Save
• NYI Mathew Barzal – Save
• PHI Claude Giroux – Save
• NYI Josh Bailey – Miss
• PHI Travis Konecny – Save
• NYI Brock Nelson – Goal
• PHI Joel Farabee – Save

Game Statistics