Highlights Beyond Highlights: Nov. 19 vs. Columbus

Joel Farabee opened the scoring for the Flyers 5:11 into the first period when he took advantage of a fortunate bounce off a dump-in attempt by Ryan Poehling. It was a nice goal, but the look here though is at the bigger picture of the Flyers’ first periods this season. That goal was the club’s 25^th in the first period through the first 18 games of the season.  Last year, it took the Flyers 36 games to post their 25^th first-period goal – they didn’t accomplish it until December 29 at San Jose. At this point in last year’s campaign, they only had 11.  The 25 first-period goals lead the NHL and account for just under half of the 52 goals the Flyers have scored this season. Those starts have gone a long way towards the team’s success to this point.

Travis Konecny scored a backbreaking goal with just over seven minutes left in the contest. Its development looked a little strange, but there’s a reason for that. In the below clip, note that it starts with a great play by Louie Belpedio to break up a Columbus zone entry, after which he sends it down the boards in front of the benches.

As Jim Jackson says in the clip, the Blue Jackets “had a whole bunch of players on the ice” – seven, to be exact, as the three forwards were all to the right of the camera shot while the defense executed a rather slow change.  As the camera passes the Columbus bench, note the two defensemen heading back to the bench while their replacements had already jumped on.  None of the three defensemen by the bench wanted to touch the puck because it would have caused a penalty, which is why the puck was free to slide to the corner where Konecny picked it up.

Further credit goes to Tyson Foerster, who hustled back into the play as an option. Because Foerster was there, Konecny was able to look off the goaltender because Foerster was there before snapping the puck into the top short-side corner.

Cam York’s empty-netter was the kind of goal that almost makes you feel bad for Columbus.  He took a puck around behind the Flyers net and simply tried to fire it around the boards and out of the zone, but it ended up taking a fortunate bounce and making it all the way to the back of the Blue Jackets’ net.

Officially, the goal was recorded at 188 feet, which is one foot shy of the longest possible shot distance on an NHL rink considering that the goal line sits 11 feet off the end boards of the 200-foot sheet.  It might be the longest feasible distance, given that the puck needs to be at least a little bit off the wall to shoot it that far, like when you pull your mini-golf ball off the wall down the shore during the summer.