A little over twenty-four hours removed from one of their most convincing wins of the season, the Flyers had themselves another good one — albeit in a completely different (and unlikely) manner: through superb goaltending from Ray Emery and strong play from the Flyers’ third-pairing defense.
It just so happened the Ottawa Senators got the exact same thing from their end. Andrew Hammond’s been pretty stellar himself, which is just weird. Some of you may remember Andrew Hammond as the goaltender for the Binghamton Senators who let in 3 goals in 21 seconds against the Lehigh Valley Phantoms earlier this season. Now he hasn’t lost in regulation over his first 11 games in the league.
Hockey is really, really weird sometimes, and the Flyers just happened to be a part of it.
Aside from portions of the first period, Ray Emery and the Flyers were able to keep up/control play against the depth of Ottawa’s forwards and the incredible run of Hammond. Jake Voracek, Claude Giroux and Brayden Schenn put in another strong performance, and it’s nice to see Brayden Schenn string together a nice couple of games back on the first line. He caught a lot of flack about that placement earlier in the season.
Two games. Two different results, but there’s not really much to complain about from the weekend, except that the shootout is still awful.
Some observations:
- The Flyers came out pretty flat in the first period; they were dragged around at even-strength and had trouble handling the puck on the power play (leading to two shorthanded rushes against). The team pretty much needed Ray Emery to keep the game knotted at zero — He was forced to make a couple of tough stops. Not really the best strategy there, but whatever. /
- Things were pretty even heading into the third period. Philadelphia had a much, much better period in the second to even things up attempt-wise. The Flyers’ defenseman to lead in ice-time and attempt +/-? Carlo Colaiacovo. I honestly don’t get why things are happening the way they are anymore (re: Berube).
- Philadelphia took another too many men penalty in that second period. That makes 10 for the season. They’re now 29th in the league in that regard — per Frank Seravalli — meaning the Flyers take the second-most too many men penalties out of all of the teams in the league. I’m not sure whether that’s an indictment of coaching, an indictment of the players or what, but that’s sloppy all around.
- Jake Voracek scored his first even-strength goal since December. That’s pretty much all we’re forced to hear about nowadays: even-strength droughts. We know even-strength play is extremely important. Neutral zone play is extremely important. We get that. It almost seems, however, that every single game there’s a different drought being brought up, a different player being harped on for something. Tonight we got to hear all about Jake Voracek’s even-strength goal drought. Fun stuff!
- The Hamburglar is the dumbest nickname ever. Stop, Ottawa. /
Tweet of the night (Yeah — that’s right — I decided to go with a tweet.):
On Rinaldo:
@eFaich @BroadStHockey but he has shown the desire to change and refs are making that impossible.
— Passenger (@High_Phil_Fly) March 16, 2015
Not a bad weekend. Should be happy with how the team played, for the most part. Go Flyers.
