Highlights Beyond Highlights- Nov. 29 vs. Rangers

Hockey continues to be a funny game, as the Flyers essentially flipped the script on Wednesday’s game in Nashville and dominated the Rangers throughout on Black Friday, while also similarly letting New York stay closer than they would have liked. The difference ended up being the Flyers took care of business at the end, and in our first highlight beyond highlight, we’ll point out that the Flyers beat the Rangers on home ice for the first time since March of 2021.

We’ll start with the first goal, which of course is an ordinary highlight, but this is to focus on Tyson Foerster’s effort on setting it up rather than Bobby Brink’s finish. Right before this clip starts, Foerster has blocked a shot by Adam Fox. He then sets his sights on getting that puck no matter what. He battles Fox, who’s a Norris Trophy winner, about 90 feet up the ice before feeding a no-look backhand right onto Brink’s tape. It really gets more remarkable every time you look at it.

Later in the period, right after Ivan Fedotov made perhaps his best save of the game, we saw more offensive wonderment from Rasmus Ristolainen. After Fedotov’s save, Sean Couturier initiated a breakout but the other two Flyer forwards were stuck below their own goal line. No matter – here comes Ristolainen, who joins Couturier on the rush and takes it all the way to the net before feeding it back to Couturier, who was thwarted by a great save from Igor Shesterkin.

Travis Sanheim is just about an every-game appearance in this column these days, and today it’s for a solid defensive play on Mika Zibanejad at the left of the Flyers net in this clip. Zibanejad has been a Flyer killer over the past few years and almost was again in this contest, as he had not only this opportunity but also an open net in the final moments that he missed. But here, Sanheim thwarts probably a sure goal that would have tied it.

And then there’s this. One of these days, one of these Michkov plays is going to result in a goal, and we’re never going to stop watching it. But the ones that come close are starting to happen almost every game.