For the first 20 minutes of Monday night’s game against the visiting Vegas Golden Knights, it looked like the Philadelphia Flyers were going to run away with one against a bigger, stronger, more talented, and more experienced team. The unfortunate reality was that the Flyers, who took a 3-0 lead in the second period through to Emil Andrae’s first NHL goal, suffered another terrible second period and blew the 3-0 lead.
Scott Laughton’s centering pass found a stray Garnet Hathaway at the front of the net, though Golden Knights goalie Ilya Samsonov did well to kick Hathaway’s chance. Unfortunately for Samsonov, the puck bounced right to Andrae, who rippled the net from range to score his first NHL goal.
The 22-year-old Flyers rookie went wild in celebration.
“It was awesome,” Andrae said. “I think you can see my celebration there, too. I was pretty hyped, so, yeah, it was awesome.”
Less awesome was the Flyers’ uninspired finish to the game.
Flyers have one of their infamous dreadful second periods
Jack Eichel and Ivan Barbashev scored less than four minutes apart to bring the Golden Knights within a goal. Magic Matvei Michkov saved the day only moments later, slithering around the net and utilizing his patented vision and patience to alertly spot a loose puck and rifle it past Samsonov, giving the Flyers a 4-2 lead.
However, Flyers captain Sean Couturier took a far from ideal hooking penalty towards the end of the second period, and Pavel Dorofeyev again brought Vegas within one, blasting home a one-timer only five seconds later.
Midway through the third period, Tanner Pearson surprised Flyers goalie Ivan Fedotov after receiving a pass in the slot and coolly buried it to tie the game at 4-4.
The whole sequence started behind the Flyers’ net, as rookie defenseman Helge Grans flailed at a puck along the wall to no avail, turning a regular defensive cycling sequence into a turnover and subsequent Golden Knights offensive zone pressure.
With Pearson capitalizing on the mistake seconds later, Grans’s night was over.
In fairness to them, the Flyers did well to stay grounded and earn a hard-fought point against a superior team missing most of its top players. Eichel would score the shootout’s only goal after the Flyers outshot Vegas 8-0 in overtime without any scoring luck.
Is this a consequence of the Flyers being a young team learning how to win, or is it a habit of losing focus? Perhaps some players do not have the killer instinct needed to kill off such an experienced and skilled Vegas team?
The answer will become more clear as the season progresses, but the Flyers are also finding out that they have a number of youngsters they can rely on, too.
Michkov is obviously one of those; that requires no further explanation. Andrae had a goal, two shots on goal, a +3 rating, and played 21:29 against Vegas. He has very quickly become a lineup staple, and his first NHL goal was the icing on the cake.
After all, this is a rebuild, isn’t it?
