There are two ways to look at this game, and I’m torn down the middle on them.
The Flyers just extended their November-long point streak to seven games whilst holding one of the best teams in the league to one goal through sixty-five minutes at the Wells Fargo Center on Wednesday night. That’s a huge step forward for a team still forming its identity and gelling as a unit under a new head coach.
But, with that type of defensive and goaltending performance against the Washington Capitals, the highest-scoring team in the league, the two points would have felt so freakin’ good.
Carter Hart stopped 35 of 36 DC shots and took his club all the way through overtime, and the penalty kill held Alex Ovechkin and the Caps’ power play scoreless on three opportunities. That HAS to be enough to earn both standings points.
It wasn’t though.
Braden Holtby was awesome, the Flyers scored less than three goals through sixty minutes in the fourth straight game (and sixth time in the last seven), and weren’t able to pull off the shootout magic as they did over the weekend.
And that’s that. Sure it’s nice to see the Flyers can skate with the league leaders in wins, points, points-percentage and goals-per-game, but they could’ve done even better than just playing with them. And that’s the theme of the postgame.
