November 29, 2016
Coming off one of their best performances of the season on Sunday against the Calgary Flames, the Philadelphia Flyers were in search of consecutive wins when they welcomed the Boston Bruins to the Wells Fargo Center Tuesday night.
The game wouldn't be settled after 60 minutes, and in overtime things got a little testy between Wayne Simmonds and everyone's least favorite pest, Brad Marchand:
Marchand and Simmonds are in the sin-bin. pic.twitter.com/Dsu8uvXbhC
— NHL on NBC (@NHLonNBCSports) November 30, 2016
And even after a 65-minute stalemate, it took 16 combined shooters in the skills competition to settle the game. Mason stopped seven of eight Bruins and Shayne Gostisbehere's goal (a nice little bank shot off Tuukka Rask's shoulder) helped the Flyers escape with a 3-2 victory:
"I really noticed his hands were low so I said I’m going to go in there and just chip one high," Gostisbehere said. "Thankfully, it worked out. He got a piece of it but it had enough to get in there.”
• This was Steve Mason's A-Game: After a rare night off in what has been a down start to the season for Mason, the Flyers netminder was excellent. Evidence:
What a series of saves by Mase pic.twitter.com/qnoZyleg8r
— Sons of Penn (@SonsofPenn) November 30, 2016
“He made some pretty amazing saves," Claude Giroux said. "Obviously without Mase we aren’t in this game, so he did a good job with keeping us in the game. It was an interesting game tonight, but we’ll take the two points.”
Mason was by far the best Flyer on the ice, making 39 saves on 41 shots in regulation. Then he added six more for good measure in OT, and the truth was that he stole the Flyers two points because...
• The Bruins carried play: Whether you look at shots (41-20), 5v5 attempts (55-26) or whatever, Boston was clearly the superior team tonight in regulation. But through two periods, the Orange and Black held a 2-0 lead and you kind of figured that this would be one of those nights where an early lead and great Mason game would hold up.
But then the Bruins kept coming, with David Krejci and Marchand getting third period tallies:
• The Flyers look a lead on a couple of great shots in the first period: First it was Michael Del Zotto at even strength with a rocket from the point, and then Giroux followed up a couple of minutes later with a perfectly placed blast after some great passing from the top power-play unit:
"Right from the outset we were fortunate to come out of the first period up by two," Hakstol said. "We made a couple of good plays to do that."
• Travis Konecny took a hit from Tim Schaller near the corner in the second period and skated off gingerly. After making a pit stop getting looked at in the locker room, he was able to return to the ice, even getting some rare 3-on-3 overtime work.
Follow Rich on Twitter: @rich_hofmann
