April 13, 2024
Kyle Ross/USA TODAY Sports
Flyers captain Sean Couturier battles for position in front of the Devils' net at the Wells Fargo Center on Saturday.
The Philadelphia Flyers are still alive.
Travis Konecny took off and scored shorthanded as they recaptured their magic on the penalty kill and he claimed his 400th career NHL point. Sam Ersson, on a second wind, stood tall in net for the second straight game to notch a 20-save shutout, and his teammates – with a little luck and tons of shot-blocking – did enough in front of him to steer the chaos away to until the final horn to beat the New Jersey Devils, 1-0.
There's one game left now, the odds are still slim, and the Flyers' fate is in others' hands as they await the Capitals on Tuesday night for their regular season finale.
But they're still alive. That snowball is still flying through hell.
"We played to get our game to Tuesday to mean something, so that's all we have to be concerned about," head coach John Tortorella said.
The Flyers' play in the first period matched that of a team still with a chance, carrying over from Thursday night's shot in the arm against the Rangers up in New York.
They carried and cycled the puck, gradually picked up in jamming the Devils through the neutral zone, and heavily controlled the tempo in select spots. But despite a few good looks and decent chances, they left the opening frame with nothing to show for it, and with a few close calls that nearly bit them had Ersson not stepped up for the big save or had the defense in front of him not have been able to navigate the scrambles in front to clear away the puck.
It happened early on when Nico Hischier had a clear lane to the net after both Flyers defensemen drew to the puck carrier and let it slip right through across the ice to the New Jersey captain. Ersson cut the angle down, made the initial stop, and when the puck trickled through from underneath his pads, Erik Johnson had luckily recovered enough to be there to send it away to the boards.
Then, late into the period, Flyers back-checkers clung to Dawson Mercer carrying the puck down along the boards, which left Timo Meier all alone peeling off the wall and toward the net on a drop pass. Ersson fought the shot off with his pads and out of play for a break.
Offensively, the Flyers had a major opportunity when the Devils gifted them a 5-on-3 advantage midway through the first.
After Nick Seeler delivered a hard, clean check along the boards to force play the other way, he was tripped up by Erik Haula on the way back up to send the Flyers on the power play. Then, as the Philadelphia was cycling and looking for an opening – much to the growing impatience of the crowd – the puck went into the corner and the stick of Devils defenseman Brenden Smith caught Noah Cates in the face while trying to clear it out.
The Devils were down two for just over a minute, which could've set them back in a big way early, but the Flyers' power play remains the team's major Achilles heel. They cycled, possessed, another Devil was even skating without a stick at one point. It all went nowhere, again, and the Flyers had to hold the line coming off of another wasted two minutes.
But they generated one more before the period was up. A drop pass from Owen Tippett looping back from within the Flyers' own zone sent Travis Sahnheim streaking along the boards and back behind the Devils' net, and when the puck slipped out in front, Bobby Brink was there and circling along the crease with it looking for the opening. Goalie Kaapo Kahkonen didn't give him one, but that didn't stop Brink from trying to jam it through, even to the ire of Hischier and Jonas Siegenthaler, who all exchanged words and shoves along the boards after the whistle.
"We were fine with it, honestly," defenseman Erik Johnson said of the scoreless first. "It was low event. For us, that's not necessarily a bad thing, especially when we've been struggling to really score outside of the Ranger game before that.
"So we were fine with it. We were OK with the game we were playing, and they didn't have a ton of chances...It's the type of game we wanted to play and had to play to give ourselves a chance."
The back and forth carried into the second, but the Devils looked to have caught a break when Cam Atkinson was tagged for a hold midway through. Instead, the Flyers found a way back to a part of their game that, at one point in the season, there was no one else better than.
Nick Seeler took a swat at the puck between the circles in their own zone and it found its way over to the stick of Scott Laughton across the blue line. Konecny saw it and was off to the races, springing past everyone as Laughton chipped a feed over to send him straight to the net.
Konecny was all alone and the shot had Kahkonen beat. 1-0, Flyers, a crucial swing in momentum, and on the back of a penalty kill unit that they needed to wreak havoc again.
Make it 4️⃣0️⃣0️⃣ career points ‼
— NBC Sports Philadelphia (@NBCSPhilly) April 13, 2024
Take a bow, TEEEEEEKS. pic.twitter.com/Y7QYz6ZNZO
"Well, I think the biggest part was [Seeler] thought Laughts was gonna get it," Johnson, who was paired with Seeler on the PK, said of the sequence postgame. "Laughts took off and Seels was like 'Ohhh god, I better get this or they might get a chance.' So me and Seels thought Laughty was gonna get it, but he took off reading the play and then Seels was right there and made a good play. TK and Laughts finished it off, but to get a shorty and get the momentum in our favor, especially to score first, it was big for us."
"That play could blow up on us," added Tortorella. "A backhand through the middle of the ice to TK going down, it gets through, but if it doesn't, it could be in the back of our net. But [associate coach Brad Shaw] runs it that way. He wants them to go for it. They've had a connection with this all year long, and TK's a guy that there were some struggles with him prior to these couple of games. He's played so well to give us a chance here. And that's one guy we talk about learning to play in these games. He certainly has taken a huge step in trying to help us stay alive."
But they were far from in the clear.The score held going into the third, chances kept exchanging, but then. Konecy got another jump flying up the wall with tons of space and time. He tried to cut in toward the net, but New Jersey's Kevin Bahl held him down to break up the scoring threat, giving the Flyers the gift and the curse of another man advantage.
Tippett nearly broke everything open, skating straight through everyone on an end-to-end rush, but once he was free for the shot, he sailed it wide, knowing he had it right there with a frustrated shout skating back to the bench for a change. The Flyers maintained control of the puck, but again, the power play went nowhere.
They had to cling on to that 1-0 lead, and did absolutely everything in their power to as New Jersey continually pressed with the clock ticking. They sold out on blocked shots, Sean Couturier won some critical defensive zone faceoffs late, Ersson had to keep hanging in there in goal, and when the Devils pulled Kahkonen with just over two minutes left, they buckled down to keep a grip on the puck and steer New Jersey clear just long enough for them to run out of time.
And to keep the Flyers' faint, but still breathing, playoff hopes alive.
"This stretch that we had probably came at the worst time," Laughton said. "Couldn't pick up a couple extra points there, which would've been huge at this time, but we're not looking back. We're looking forward. We continue to compete and guys are playing for each other – we have all year. We're gonna try and get in here. Huge game coming up...
"Little bit of scoreboard watching, too."
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