Tag: Alain Vigneault

The Flyers win over the Sabres, their ninth straight, was a classic formula that good teams follow. Their goalie stole the result and some opportunistic goals were enough.

Carter Hart made 38 saves in helping to lift the Flyers to their ninth straight win, a 3-1 defeat of the Sabres, allowing them to keep pace in the Metropolitan Division with the Washington Capitals in a tie for first place.

For as level-headed and as focused as the Flyers have been on the task at hand and staying in the moment in every game, notably when adjustments have to be made, it’s only natural that some of the excitement is setting in.

The Flyers provided a timeline for James van Riemsdyk’s injury, suffered in the Flyers win in Washington on Wednesday night. van Riemsdyk will miss four-to-six weeks with a broken right index finger.

The Flyers win against the division-leading Capitals on a national stage with a very strong final 40 minutes certainly qualifies as a statement. That statement: this team is for real, and people are really starting to see it.

The Flyers fell behind in the first, but responded with a strong second and third period to secure their third win of the season against the Washington Capitals, claiming a 5-2 victory in Washington on Wednesday night.

With the Flyers on a six-game winning streak and in second place in the heavyweight Metropolitan Division, it feels like night and day compared to just a year ago.

It’s fitting that the Flyers next opponent is Washington, given how a 3-2 regulation win on Jan. 8 against the then-NHL-best Capitals was the start of something that is becoming a magical run for the Orange and Black.

In the middle of a game where the scoreboard showed 4-1 and 5-1 for most of the third period, it is the small defensive plays that will quickly be forgotten, but those little plays have the Flyers where they are. Where they are, on Saturday morning, is second in the Metropolitan Division and on a five-game winning streak.

For Nate Thompson and Derek Grant, who were literally dropped into a playoff race at the trade deadline, there should be some added motivation. They both had a front row seat as their next team continued to make that playoff push with another win on Tuesday.

The Flyers have acquired center Derek Grant from the Anaheim Ducks in exchange for AHL forward Kyle Criscuolo and a 2020 fourth-round pick.

That’s perhaps the biggest difference between the Flyers of this season and the Flyers of last season and years past. This team believes they are never out of a game. More times than not, they have risen to the occasion. There have been times when people want to pronounce them dead for a poor performance or a crushing loss, only to have them rise to the occasion the very next game.

When the dust settled from Tuesday’s game against the Columbus Blue Jackets, the scoreboard read 5-1 in favor of the Flyers. It hardly felt like a game that the Flyers had won by four goals in rather convincing fashion. 

In his return to the lineup on Monday, the first game in a stretch of six against teams right in the thick of the Eastern Conference playoff race, the first shot Carter Hart faced found the net. Hart responded by stopping the next 30 that the Panthers took in the Flyers 4-1 win.

“It was a strong team win, we had saves at the right time, but go figure, we were able to score seven tonight and weren’t able to score one last game.” Go figure is right. After getting shut out by the last-place Devils on Thursday, the Flyers scored seven goals against the Metropolitan Division-leading Capitals. “It’s the beauty of the game,” Vigneault said with a smile.

The Flyers season is at a crossroads. On one hand, they are right in the thick of the race already and not in a frantic chase back to the playoffs. But they also learned the hard way on Thursday night that every game matters, even the ones against teams in the bottom third of the standings.

Nearly every goal the Flyers scored in their 6-3 win over the Colorado Avalanche proved to be timely in some way, whether because of a timely save by Lyon or just helping them always keep a grip on control of the game. The Flyers never trailed, but with full knowledge of how the game 24 hours earlier played out, a big swing could have been moments away.

At the end of a seven-game stretch that featured five of the top six teams in the league as of Wednesday morning’s standings, the Flyers came away with a 5-2-0 record. Against those five teams, they were 4-1-0 with the only loss being a 1-0 defeat to Tampa Bay. So forgive Alain Vigneault if he was in the mood to celebrate this win and going on a break the way it started.

Travis Konecny scored the first two goals of the game and James van Riemsdyk had a goal and two assists, helping to pace the Flyers to a 4-1 win over the Los Angeles Kings on Saturday night at Wells Fargo Center. 

The Flyers next game comes against another team outside of playoff position. The Los Angeles Kings come to town on Saturday night and it is a game the Flyers certainly feel the need to come away with a better result.

Claude Giroux noted that, while it’s no excuse, it can be tough to get up the next day and play another game, no matter the opponent. Alain Vigneault didn’t buy into the theory. “You know that word that starts with b?” the Flyers head coach said.

A strange ending capped off a Flyers comeback win against a team at the top of the standings. It’s a win they want to build on as they prepare to hit the road again.

Andrei Vasilevskiy posted a shutout for the second straight game and the Lightning showed a real commitment to defensive play and taking away virtually everything the Flyers could have brought to the table. There was simply no room to operate, no room to execute and when the Flyers were able to pump the puck deep, they could not win the races because the Lightning were perfectly placed.

It will not go down as the most memorable decade in Flyers franchise history, but there were certainly a few great moments from start to finish in the 2010s.

Kevin Hayes struck for a pair of goals in the third period against his former team, including the game-winner as the Flyers went into the holiday break with their fourth straight win, defeating the Rangers, 5-1, on Monday night at Wells Fargo Center.

The Flyers took full advantage of a team without their top player and captain. In the first period, they scored three goals in a span of 4:01. In the second period, they added three more in a span of 4:07. That was more than enough in a 6-1 win on Thursday night that continued the team’s incredible run of success on home ice.

Seeing Oskar Lindblom provided a lift for the rest of the Flyers, who “won for Oskar” on Tuesday night against the Ducks.

Flyers forward Travis Konecny is out indefinitely after suffering a concussion during Saturday’s game against the Ottawa Senators.

The Flyers came away with the 4-3 win over the Senators on Saturday afternoon, but perhaps something bigger than just two points. It was just another example of a team that continues to show a closeness and ability to overcome adversity that wasn’t there in the past.