Egor Zamula is getting a bit of trial by fire in the current situation where both Marc Staal and Rasmus Ristolainen are injured. Although mistakes will happen, he seems to be getting more and more comfortable with the pace of NHL play, which of course is what the Flyers want to see.
A particularly effective shift for Zamula came halfway through the first period when he defused multiple Carolina zone entries and also positioned himself well at one point to provide support to Cam York when he was under duress in the neutral zone after a puck hopped over his stick at the Carolina blue line. Zamula punctuated the shift with a pretty breakup of a late-breaking 2-on-1 for the Hurricanes.
It cannot be underestimated the amount of lift a good fourth line can give to a team in the modern NHL. John Tortorella is even loath to call it a “fourth line” because of the history of connotations that go along with it. Monday’s line was slightly different, as the route to get Morgan Frost back in the lineup as a top-three center meant moving Scott Laughton down to center Nic Deslauriers and Garnet Hathaway while Ryan Poehling came out of the lineup.
That line shone through near the end of the first period on the Flyers’ second goal. It came on a sequence that started behind their own net, where Deslauriers smushed Jack Drury in the corner where the Zamboni comes out. Deslauriers then received a breakout pass, carried it to the Carolina line, used Laughton for a give-and-go to gain the zone, and then looked for Hathaway headed to the net.
The only thing that interrupted the plans was that Brady Skjei blocked the initial pass. But Hathaway stopped after reaching the net, as opposed to what often happens when the second player executes a “flyby”, crossing in front of the net and then off towards the corner. Because Hathaway stopped, he was able to reach Deslauriers’ second pass attempt and poke it through Frederik Anderson for his first goal as a Flyer. (Stick taps to the shoutout from the Ivy League.)
