The Flyers played a decent first period against Tampa Bay but weren't able to get anything going against them in the second frame in an eventual 4-1 setback. Nick Paul scored Tampa Bay's first two goals, with Steven Stamkos recording his 1000th career point with an assist on the second. Ross Colton scored with less than four seconds left in the middle frame to make it 3-0, and a fluky dump-in by Ian Cole hit the end boards and eluded Carter Hart in the third period. Travis Konecny returned to the lineup after missing six games and provided the Flyers' only tally with about 8 ½ minutes left in the game.
POSTGAME 5: Lightning Strikes in Philly
The Flyers played a decent first period against Tampa Bay but weren't able to get anything going against them in the second frame in an eventual 4-1 setback
TURNING POINT
Rasmus Ristolainen hopped on the ice 2:44 into the second period for his first shift of the frame. Tampa Bay gained the Flyers' zone 20 seconds later and hemmed the Flyers in; Ristolainen had been on the ice for 90 seconds when he blocked a shot off the stick of Steven Stamkos that sent him to the ice and saw him struggle back to his feet. He stayed in the play, but couldn't make it to the bench due to the second-period long change and being on the right side of the ice, therefore as far away from the bench as possible. It was another 2 ½ minutes before the Flyers could get a whistle that allowed Ristolainen to get off the ice after a shift that ended up being 4:02 in length. Ivan Provorov was out there for 3:20 of it just because he wanted to make sure Ristolainen wasn't left out to dry. Although the Lightning didn't score in that stretch, the Flyers never really recovered from that shift for the rest of the period.
SMITTY'S TAKE
In their current state, which is a team still missing a significant amount of its up-front scoring, the Flyers' margin of error against a team like Tampa Bay was next to zero. Unfortunately they went beyond that margin.
Nick Paul slipped in behind Tony DeAngelo to score the second goal after DeAngelo's attention was drawn to Ian Cole, who was below the goal line. It was an unfortunate turn of events for DeAngelo, whose biggest flaw lately has only been that he wants to help the team turn things around so badly that he sometimes tries to do a little too much.
The third goal came in the form of the latest class in the NHL education of Egor Zamula. In possession of the puck at his own blue line, facing into the zone with less than 10 seconds left and the veteran Corey Perry bearing down behind him, Zamula attempted to toss the puck to safety but did so in what ended up being the worst possible direction - towards center ice and right onto the stick of Ross Colton. He fed Perry ahead on a breakaway on which Carter Hart made the initial save, but Colton cleaned up the rebound with 3.8 seconds remaining. One thing that's certain is the entire situation will make its way into Zamula's memory bank to be better executed next time, and the Flyers will gladly eat that mistake now in the name of it not happening again down the road.
The degree to which the ice tilted Tampa Bay's way in the second period following the Ristolainen shift, unofficially declared by radio analyst Steve Coates to be the longest in Flyers history, was remarkable. The Flyers were outshot 17-2 in the second period, and occasionally teams do suffer through periods like that. But the Flyers managed only five shot attempts in that period - that's total attempts, which is the combination of shots on goal, shots that are blocked and shots that miss the net, and is usually a number that's in the 20s for a typical period. By contrast, they had nine shots on goal and 20 attempts in the first, and 11 shots on goal with 17 total attempts in the third. Given that number, it's incredible that the Flyers came within less than four seconds of getting out of that period only allowing one goal. But it just illustrates the degree to which…
Carter Hart was on his game in this contest, and it's unfortunate that the Flyers weren't able to better take advantage of it. The Flyers netminder kept the game from getting out of hand completely, starting with a highlight-reel glove save on an Alex Killorn rebound bid with 12:48 left in the first period that was one of those situations where you're watching and briefly start to get sad because you know that puck is going into the net, until suddenly it doesn't. Late in the second he stoned Brandon Hagel on a breakaway, and several of his other 21 saves were low-key terrific. The only flaw was the 100-foot dump-in by Cole that hit the end boards and shot towards the net like it was a rare earth magnet, the kind of fluke that burns a goalie usually about once a year and fortunately happened to Hart in a game where it didn't really matter. The Flyers will win more games where Hart plays like this than they'll lose.
The Flyers welcomed the return of Travis Konecny, who missed six games with an injury deemed either lower or upper body depending on whether his arms were in the air or at his sides at the time of the inquiry. He cashed in with a goal in his return, and although it unfortunately came when things were already decided, it did give the 80's Night crowd something to cheer for. But it will also serve to boost Konecny's psyche headed into Saturday's game, as the first game back after such a long layoff is always a bit of a struggle as a player works to regain his timing and overall bearings. He had four missed shot attempts in the first two periods and a memorable dump-in attempt that went over the glass and halfway to the Neshaminy Mall, causing him to examine his stick afterwards, perhaps to make sure it was his. The Flyers will be best for it if he got all the cobwebs out in this game, which it appeared he had done when he fired three shots on goal in the third period, including the one that beat Vasilevskiy.
Although it came against the Flyers, it's always neat to witness a piece of history, which happened when Steven Stamkos recorded his 1,000th career point in the second period. He is the first player in Lightning franchise history to reach the milestone and per NHL Stats, he became the eighth active player to accumulate 1,000 points with one franchise, a feat last achieved 10 days ago by Boston's Patrice Bergeron. As the Bruins did when Bergeron reached the milestone in Tampa Bay on Nov. 21, the Lightning players cleared the bench to congratulate Stamkos on the ice.
Congratulations are also in order to Lightning forward and former Flyer Pierre-Edouard Bellemare, a member of the Flyers All-Time Good Guy Team ™, who skated in his 608th career NHL game. In doing so, he passed Antoine Roussel for sole possession of the most games played by a French-born player in NHL history.
