November 19, 2015
Another game, and another quiet night from the Philadelphia Flyers’ offense. The unit, which came into the evening ranked 29th in the NHL at 1.89 goals per game, was held scoreless by the San Jose Sharks for all of regulation.
The good news is that the Sharks didn’t score either, so the Flyers earned a point. Unfortunately for the Orange and Black, Melker Karlsson put away a 2-on-1 chance at 3-on-3 in overtime to give San Jose the 1-0 win. Here’s what I saw:
• Great kill at 4-on-3 by the Flyers to start overtime after Wayne Simmonds was given a dicey tripping penalty with only seconds left in regulation.
• The Sharks put 10 shots on Steve Mason in the first period, and Mase had to come up big to keep them off the board. After the initial flurry, he had a pretty uneventful evening, facing 11 shots the rest of the game (including overtime).
• The Flyers quietly dominated this game from a possession standpoint, out-Corsi’ing San Jose 50-35 at even strength 5v5 in regulation. They couldn’t capitalize. The physical second line (Simmonds, Sean Couturier, Matt Read) was the team’s best.
• GHOST WATCH: Like a great point guard, Shayne Gostisbehere has his head up. This stretch pass to Michael Raffl was on the money:
What a sick feed by Ghost to spring Raffl on a breakaway pic.twitter.com/tFC412Phk1
— Sons of Penn (@SonsofPenn) November 20, 2015
As for the rest of Ghost’s game, we saw some good (furious charges up the ice for controlled zone entries) and bad (turnovers in his own zone that led to San Jose scoring chances). Overall, the kid played very well at home these last two games.
• Flyers penalty kills often begin the same way: Claude Giroux wins faceoff, Flyers clear puck, Claude Giroux skates to the bench. Giroux came into the game winning an excellent 60.7 percent of his draws.
If you have ever followed ESPN’s Pierre LeBrun on Twitter, you probably already know that Claude Giroux is “The Pride of Hearst, Ontario.” Besides Philly and Hearst, the captain’s other home is in Ottawa, where he has been known to make headlines from time to time. And yes, this whole paragraph was simply an excuse to link to that story. #NeverForget
Anyway, Flyers-Senators (9-5-5) is Saturday night at 7:00 p.m.
Follow Rich on Twitter: @rich_hofmann
