Tag: Ivan Provorov

Over the weekend, the last piece of business for the Flyers this offseason came complete. Maybe. With five days remaining until a scheduled arbitration date, the last remaining arbitration-eligible player in the league without a contract, the Flyers and defenseman Travis Sanheim reached agreement on a two-year deal with an AAV of $4.675 million on Saturday afternoon.

The Flyers appear to be done for the offseason, outside of re-signing Carter Hart and Travis Sanheim, and are hoping a majority of their acquisitions turn out to be wins on “quality bets.”

The 2021 NHL Draft is set to take place on Friday night and continue into Saturday with Rounds 2 through 7. But this draft has a different feel for GM Chuck Fletcher and the Flyers. For the better part of two weeks now, Fletcher has made it public knowledge that while the Flyers will happy make their selection with the 13th pick in the draft, they are not afraid to move the pick in the right deal.

Who will it be? Will Seattle simply select a player or is there a side deal that could be in place? There are three potential outcomes for the Flyers in Wednesday night’s expansion draft, and we’ll detail each possibility and how it could impact the Flyers offseason plans.

When Saturday afternoon’s trade went down and sent Ryan Ellis to the Flyers for Phil Myers and Nolan Patrick, it came as a surprise to the veteran defenseman. That said, it also marks the beginning of a new chapter for Ellis.

The Flyers have protected forwards Claude Giroux, Kevin Hayes, Sean Couturier, Travis Konecny, Oskar Lindblom, Scott Laughton and Nicolas Aube-Kubel. They have also protected defensemen Ivan Provorov, Travis Sanheim and the newly-acquired Ryan Ellis, as well as goalie Carter Hart in the upcoming Expansion Draft.

From a mid-January start with some early positive results to one final win/loss to the New Jersey Devils in mid-May to conclude the 56-game campaign, here are five takeaways from the season.

Lars Eller scored with 39.8 seconds left in the third period, then Conor Sheary got the game-winner with a minute left in overtime to hand the Flyers a 2-1 loss on Saturday night.

Joel Farabee scored his team-leading 18th goal of the season and Wade Allison scored a pair of goals as the Flyers defeated the Capitals, 4-2, on Friday night.

Kyle Collington and Kevin Durso discuss it all, looking at a week with the Devils and other playoff races happening around the league.

James van Riemsdyk scored a pair of goals, including one off his face in the second period, helping the Flyers grab a 3-2 win over the Rangers on Thursday night.

The Capitals’ superstar was given the opportunities to unleash his lethal shot. The Flyers third-string netminder did an admirable job given the circumstances. The Flyers continued to get an impressive start from one of their young players. Here are five takeaways from Saturday’s 6-3 Flyers loss to Washington.

Alex Ovechkin scored another pair of goals to bring his season total against the Flyers to eight and his career total to 730, as the Capitals handed the Flyers a 6-3 loss on Saturday afternoon at Wells Fargo Center.

Notably in Thursday’s game, the Flyers saw their goalie perform at the level he’s shown before but struggled to get to this season. And he had to take center stage in the skills competition coin flip that is the shootout to secure a 2-1 victory over the Penguins.

Flyers GM Chuck Fletcher addressed the moves made by the team on trade deadline day, trading Michael Raffl and Erik Gustafsson and re-signing Scott Laughton, while also starting to take a glimpse into what should be a busy offseason.

Less than 24 hours before the trade deadline, the Flyers were left with a stunning defeat to the Buffalo Sabres, the NHL lowest team in the standings, handed a loss by lowly Buffalo for the second time in two weeks. It was the most fitting of endings for a team that has continued to get in their own way all season.

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.

The result was what the Flyers needed. How long it took was what they didn’t. In this critical week in their season, the one that will likely define whether they choose to buy or sell – or do a little of both – at the deadline, the Flyers needed to win games. They have one to start, certainly a step in the right direction. 

Travis Sanheim delivered, with the help of Patrice Bergeron going down as Sanheim moved in on a counter-rush. Sanheim scored on Dan Vladar to give the Flyers a 3-2 overtime win, the team’s first over the Bruins this season, on Monday night in Boston.

There are no moral victories when it comes to playoff races or trying to contend at this point in a season. You either find a way to win or you don’t and that single point still involves a point lost. That said, there are plenty of moral victories you can find in games like this when you are trying to determine what you have and what you need for the future. The Flyers got lessons in both on Saturday.

A pair of goals by Claude Giroux erased a two-goal deficit and Carter Hart was having an outstanding game. Unfortunately, the Islanders got the extra point in the shootout, defeating the Flyers, 3-2, on Saturday night.

How did the Flyers cap off this month? Quite possibly in the most fitting way, losing to a team that couldn’t win a game all month long, the only team that seemed to be finding a way to lose games more than the Flyers themselves. It wasn’t even a close loss, it was another embarrassment. The Buffalo Sabres snapped an 18-game winless streak as the Flyers closed March with a 6-1 defeat on Wednesday night.

The Flyers may be sitting fifth in the East, three points out of a playoffs, still very much mathematically alive. But their defense is in shambles. Almost every core player that was expected to produce on the higher end offensively has shown struggles. The goaltending has been questioned. To put it simply, the Flyers are a mess right now, and it’s become clear that the current system is just not working.

Monday’s game was a battle royale of mediocrity. This was a game that probably played out exactly as it should have in both result and process. Yes, the Flyers are a better team than the Sabres. The standings certainly reflect that. But for 40 minutes, they weren’t close to that, so much so that they not only once again dug a hole to the worst team in the league, requiring another frantic third-period rally, but they also had to shorten the bench to do it.

After falling behind 3-0, the Flyers erased the deficit in the third period, then won the game 42 seconds into overtime on Ivan Provorov’s game-winner to claim two points against the Buffalo Sabres on Monday night.

The only thing consistent about the Flyers right now is their ability to be inconsistent. One night, you get a decent effort. The next, you get an embarrassing effort. And on a night when you needed to build on that effort, needed to turn it into a win, needed to start getting things back on the rails right away, the Flyers were as flat as can be.

It may be March, but it sure feels like the Flyers are stuck on Groundhog Day. Tuesday’s game against the Devils certainly was recognizable. The Flyers fell behind due to a lack of urgency and puck management, only to claw back to within one goal late before time ran out. It’s happened at least three times this month now, with the latest installment coming in a 4-3 loss to the Devils. 

After allowing the first two goals of the game to put themselves in another hole, the Flyers gave up another goal in the first two minutes of the second period. The game was essentially over right then and there, because the 18 minutes that followed were not just the worst the Flyers have played this season, they were historically bad.

In the end, the Flyers probably got the deserved result for the chances they had in the third period and the strong start they had in the first. It’s two points they desperately needed and will take any way they can get at this point. The process on the ice may still have a lot of flaws and they were on full display again, but it’s a game the team can put back in the win column, another game where they took care of business against a team behind them in the standings.