The Philadelphia Flyers are off to a near-perfect start in the NHL preseason, smoking the Washington Capitals in a 6-2 win at the Capital One Arena on Sunday afternoon.
The Flyers’ young stars led the way in this lopsided contest; Joel Farabee, Jett Luchanko, Matvei Michkov, Morgan Frost, and Bobby Brink all registered two or more points in an uncommon fireworks display for Philadelphia offensively.
Farabee and Brink, in particular, took charge against the Capitals, combining for a whopping 12 shots on goal.
Top prospects Andrew Cristall and Ivan Miroshnichenko scored the Capitals’ only two goals, but Brink and Co. pulled away with a three-goal third period, complemented by a nine-save shutout from 19-year-old goalie Carson Bjarnason.
Flyers Recap
Brink opened the scoring for the Flyers just four minutes into the preseason contest on Sunday, weaponizing a lethal backhand shot to convert a rush chance started by Farabee and Luchanko. Luchanko, who surprisingly featured on a line with Farabee and Brink, picked up his first unofficial Flyers point on the opening tally.
With just under four minutes remaining in the first period, NHL hopeful Emil Andrae combined with Frost and Brink to create an impromptu scoring chance with some mazy diagonal passing, and though Capitals goalie Hunter Shepard came up with the initial close-range stops, Frost re-upped at the side of the cage and deposited his backhand attempt in the greasy area for a 2-0 lead.
Unfortunately for Ivan Fedotov, who played the first two periods for the Flyers in net, Cristall’s one-timer took a meaty deflection off the blade of Nick Seeler’s skate and took off into the top corner for a Capitals goal.
The Flyers’ strong start bled into the second period when Farabee converted a tic-tac-toe passing play started by Jamie Drysdale, who quarterbacked Philadelphia’s top power play unit to two goals on the afternoon.
With just under two minutes to go into the period, Miroshnichenko beat Fedotov with an impossibly good snap shot from the left circle on the power play to slice the Flyers’ lead back down to just one, punishing Olle Lycksell for an unsightly delay of game penalty.
Overall, it was a productive outing for Fedotov, who finished with 10 saves on 12 shots for a .833 save percentage and earned the victory decision. The 27-year-old effectively ate up space and cut down angles in his crease, and the two goals from Washington were hardly his fault at all.
Bjarnason replaced Fedotov to start the third period and stopped all nine shots Washington sent his way, including a particularly dangerous power play chance from Jakub Vrana.
Brink, Luchanko, and Farabee extrapolated their dominant performance when Brink scored his second goal a quarter of the way through the third period, dangling a Capitals forward at the circle before going bar-down from range on the backhand to double Philadelphia’s lead to 4-2.
Just over a minute later, Lycksell posted up in front of Capitals goalie Clay Stevenson and punished his opposition for failing to clear the defensive zone, receiving a pass from Rhett Gardner in tight and going upstairs on his backhand to put the game out of reach.
For good measure, Michkov threaded the needle on the power play with a disgusting pass to Joel Farabee, whose shot left a juicy rebound for Frost to bang home for the Flyers’ sixth goal of the game.
The Flyers will be right back in action again on Monday night, squaring off with the Montreal Canadiens at 7 p.m. at Bell Centre.
