By Bill Minchin, Sports Talk Philly writer
It was a tough, gritty and sometimes sloppy effort. Anthony Stolarz stopped 28 Detroit shots and Brayden Schenn picked up his fourth goal in two games as the Philadelphia Flyers defeated the Red Wings 1-0 in overtime to extend their winning streak to nine games.
The first period was a bit of a throwback to 1990's hockey. The neutral zone was virtual spiderweb for pucks, especially for Philadelphia. Detroit did an outstanding job of clogging things up and not letting the Flyers hit the blue line with speed.
The Flyers only extended zone pressure during the first ten minutes was due to an early power play. The Flyers got that man advantage just 1:11 into the game when Henrik Zetterberg was called for interference. They were unable to score.
After a long stretch of turnover filled hockey, the Red Wings got their first chance with the extra man when Michael Raffl was called for holding at 15:09 of the period. Like the Flyers, Detroit was unable to score.
Just 11 seconds after the Raffl penalty expired, Philadelphia went back to the power play. This power play had much better puck movement but faired no better than the first one.
Anthony Stolarz made five saves while Jimmy Howard mad ten and the teams went to the locker room scoreless.
The second period was similar to the first with the neutral zone turnovers but unlike in the first it led to better chances. Both teams were able to generate more offense than they did in the first period and the shot totals bore that out.
Detroit had the advanatge in power plays in the second. The Red Wings got the benefit of two Flyers penalties while only taking one.
Like the first period, neither team would capitalize with the extra man situations and the second period ended the same way with the game scoreless.
Philadelphia fired 12 more shots on Howard and Detroit got 11 on Stolarz only to be turned away.
Detroit turned up the pressure early in the third which led to two power plays.
The first power play was much like the previous three. The Red Wings had zone time but only managed a few shots that did not test Stolarz.
The second power play was different. Detroit peppered Stolarz the entire two minutes but Stolarz didn't flinch. The FLyers goalie was the best penalty killer and the game stayed scoreless.
The Flyers also had a power play in the third but were unable to score as well.
The teams exchanged some back and forth play the rest of period but neither team could score and the game would head to overtime.
In the three on three extra period, the Flyers held the puck for most of the five minute period. Even with the puck posession, it was a very slow moving session. That was until Brayden Schenn and Ivan Provorov went to work.
Schenn made a nice drop pass to Provorov who hit Schenn with a return pass. Schenn took the return feed and cut in front of Howard slipping a backhand past the Red Wings netminder to give the Flyers the 1-0 victory.
Stolarz made 28 saves for his first NHL shutout.
