It’s rare that a team clearly loses a face off and then scores a goal within three seconds of losing that face off, but that’s exactly what happened here for the Flyers on their first goal of Saturday night.
Manny Malhotra won the face off back, where Nathan Beaulieu went to retrieve it. He did so cleanly, even with Claude Giroux beginning to pressure him, but Tom Gilbert let the puck get by him, where Jakub Voracek was there to quickly steal it away.
Winger Dale Weise had already begun to break up ice, since he thought his teammates had clear possession of the puck. That left Michael Raffl all alone in front of the net, and from that point this almost felt like a set play it happened so fast. Voracek dished off to Giroux, and he barely possessed the puck before dishing completing the tic-tac-toe passing, hitting Raffl in front, where all he had to do was deke by Carey Price.
This goal was a great mix of strong passing, a pretty move in front of the net, and timely capitalization off the Canadiens‘ mistake.
