DETROIT — It took 50 minutes, 59 seconds to build energy and break through Ville Husso’s goaltending, but once the Flyers got on the board, they ran with it to a 2-1 win over the Detroit Red Wings on Saturday.
After starting the day with an energetic morning skate, the Flyers showed little of that jump when the puck dropped. The highlight through the first 20 minutes was their penalty kill, where they aggressively went for pucks and held the Red Wings to zero shots on goal.
To add to the lack of energy, the Flyers also lacked execution. The puck bounced over sticks or off of sticks in the wrong direction. They weren’t able to get inside on offense, and they couldn’t keep the Red Wings outside on defense.
The Flyers were saved by their goalie, Carter Hart, who stepped up in critical moments, and by the fact the Red Wings weren’t playing with much energy either. By the end of two scoreless periods, the highlights had more to do with the scrums than either team’s play.
When the stalemate finally broke, it went in the Flyers’ favor, to the disappointment of Little Caesar’s Arena. Kevin Hayes patiently held the puck at the blue line before placing it on Scott Laughton’s stick, and he beat the Red Wings defenders for a backhand goal.
Laughton’s goal was the jump the Flyers needed, and Noah Cates scored shortly after. The Red Wings pulled the goalie with more than three minutes left, and Lucas Raymond scored with 41.6 seconds left, but it wasn’t enough to pull off the comeback.
Carter Sharp
Hart was the only person who looked sharp from the start. While both teams struggled to generate offense, a lot of the Red Wings’ shots were near the net. They were slow to shoot on some, making the close-range shots easy for Hart to snag. But there were several that required Hart to make athletic plays.
While the momentum stayed low for both teams in the second, Hart had to step up again when Raymond cut through the Flyers’ defenders for a point-blank shot. Hart got an assist from Nicolas Deslauriers on defending a backdoor pass in the third, but even without the help, he was there.
Hart’s play set the stage for the Flyers to take the lead despite their unimpressive performance for much of the game, and, with three seconds left, he saved the game from going into overtime.
Teetering on the edge
With the 0-0 stalemate dragging on, tensions rose on the ice. Any goal could lead to the win. And any perceived slight could set off a round of shoving.
The first period was typically chippy until Rasmus Ristolainen laid out Michael Rasmussen and was called for an interference penalty. The other players on the ice jumped in before Ristolainen went to the box. The Flyers easily killed off that penalty, but things only got tenser from there.
The first period culminated in unsportsmanlike conduct penalties for Travis Konecny and David Perron. The second period picked up with more shoving involving Konecny and eventually a scrum along the boards that led to a Flyers 4-on-3. Like the Red Wings, the Flyers couldn’t take advantage, and the tie carried on with the second ending in another scrum.
Taking one for the team
The shot count on the score board looked close to even, but the reality was much more skewed. When it came to generating opportunities, the Red Wings were taking many more shots. The Flyers were just blocking them before they got to the net.
At the end of the game, Hart was responsible for stopping 30 shots. His teammates also stopped 30. Some were stopped up high. Others were stopped right at the net. Deslauriers blocked a close-range shot right along the blue paint in the third. Ivan Provorov absorbed a Red Wings power-play shot that sent him to the ice, where he curled up in pain and had to be pushed off.
What’s next
The Flyers return home and play the Winnipeg Jets on the back end of the back-to-back. Puck drop is at 7 p.m. Sunday.
