POSTGAME 5: Late Comeback Rescues a Point

Opening the 2021-22 regular season, the Philadelphia Flyers lost via shootout the Vancouver Canucks via shootout, 5-4 (2-0), at the Wells Fargo Center on Friday evening.

A four-goal second period for Vancouver completely changed the complexion of the game after Philadelphia controlled the opening stanza. The Flyers seemed dead in the water for much of the third period, until they notched two late goals to force overtime.
Joel Farabee (1st goal of the season) tallied the only goal of the first period. In the second period, the Canucks struck for consecutive goals by Vasily Pozkoldin (1st), Elias Pettersson (power play, 1st) and Alex Chiasson (power play, 1st). Cam Atkinson (1st) tallied for the first time as a Flyer to narrow the gap to 3-2. Miller (1st) restored a two-goal lead for Vancouver late in the period.
Travis Konecny (power play, 1st) cut the gap to one goal late in the third period. Claude Giroux (1st) got the game knotted on a 6-on-4 attack and forced OT.

The Canucks dominated OT but couldn't get another puck past Carter Hart. In the shootout, Pettersson and Miller scored on their chances. Couturier and Giroux were unable to convert their opportunities.
Hart took the loss in an uneven performance. He stopped 35 of 39 shots, including 15 in the third period and six in OT. On the heels of what happened in the second period, the latter part of the game was a promising sign. However, he was 0-for-2 on the shootout.
Thatcher Demko earned the win. The Canucks goalie denied 31 of 35 Flyers shots. Demko was 2-for-2 in the shootout.
The Flyers went 1-for-3 on the power play and 2-for-4 on the penalty kill.
TURNING POINT
With Vancouver seemingly in total command of the game, a careless high-sticking penalty by Oliver Ekman-Larsson opened the door for a 6-on-4 Flyers power play (Hart had been pulled for an extra attacker). At 17:43, the puck found it's a way to TK in the slot and he buried it to narrow the gap to 4-3. The assists went to Sean Couturier and Keith Yandle after an initial slap-pass by the veteran offensive defenseman.

Hart remained on the bench with the Flyers attacking 6-on-5. From the left side of the net just in front of the goal line, Giroux buried the game-tying goal. Assists went to Couturier and Ryan Ellis at 18:48.

MELTZER'S TAKE
1) The Flyers came out setting an immediate aggressive 2-1-2 forecheck and outskated Vancouver to chipped-in pucks. Philadelphia controlled the territorial play for the first half of the period. After Tyler Myers tripped Travis Konecny, the Flyers got the season's first power play. The penalty expired but Philadelphia scored moments later at the 6:15 mark, From the right circle, after receiving a pass from Ryan Ellis, Farabee one-timed a shot that pinballed off Demko, then off defenseman Tucker Poolman and into the net for Philly's first goal of the 2021-22 season. Ivan Provorov, who rotated the puck from the left side across the ice to Ellis, got the secondary assist.

2) The Flyers outhit the Canucks by a 15-9 margin, led by the fourth line with a combined six credited hits (three by Nic Aube-Kubel). Puck possession wise, the Flyers generated 66.67% percent of the five-on-five shot attempts, 10 scoring chances including a 5-2 high-danger chance edge. That was just about everything the Flyers wanted to accomplish in the opening 20, but went to intermission with just a 1-0 edge.
3) The Canucks' Ekman-Larsson with Myers pair beat the Flyers 2-man forecheck to start the play that resulted in Vancouver tying the score at 1-1, TK came up empty on NZ poke-check attempts and VAN scored off the rush. Pozkoldin got a lot on a wrist shot from the right dot and beat Hart upstairs at 2:36.
At 4:07, a Konecny high-sticking penalty turned in a Pettersson goal. The puck bounced off the wall, off back of Hart's skate and into the net. The assists went to J.T. Miller and Alex Chiasson. After Ivan Provorov took a delay of game penalty for flipping the puck over the glass from the defensive zone, Atkinson forced a turnover a turnover and passed to Thompson who went on Demko but couldn't finish.
The Canucks got a 35-second two-man advantage after the Flyers were called for too many men on the ice. With a single tick left on the 5-on-3, Chiasson (from his knees), poked the puck into the net past Hart after the Flyers goalie made an initial save. The assists went to Miller and Quinn Hughes at 9:36..
4) The Flyers got a goal back at 12:17. The Flyers won a battle behind the net, and Farabee centered the puck to Atkinson in the low slot. Atkinson finished it off to make it a 3-2 game. The secondary assist went to Yandle. Shortly thereafter, the Flyers got a 2-on-1 rush with a chance to tie the score. Scott Laughton saucered a pass across the Oskar Lindblom, but the puck either hopped or Lindblom flubbed it.
The Flyers could ill-afford to fall any further behind but that's what happened at 17:07. Hart made a save on a shot with his skate up against the left post but came off the post and looked the other way, unaware of where the puck was. Miller poked the puck over the line at 17:07 for a potential back-breaking goal. The assists went to Petterson and Conor Garland. Of the four goals Vancouver scored in the period, this was the most damaging.

The disastrous period ended with a lengthy delayed cross-checking penalty on the debuting Max Willman. Vancouver took a full two-minute power play into the third period. Second period shots were 13-10 in Vancouver's favor.
5) With a two-goal lead, the Canucks outworked the Flyers for much of the third period. Philadelphia, which continued to roll four line for a large portion of the period, had trouble generating productive shifts or even B-grade scoring chances. Third period shots were 15-9 in Vancouver's favor, but Philly made shots by Konecny and Giroux count and got the game to overtime with a point in the bank that seemed quite unlikely a few minutes earlier.
Other than one tremendous rush by Atkinson in which the seas parted for him and he nearly scored on a backhander, the Flyers spent most of the extra frame in their own end of the ice. Hart had to make a half-dozen saves in five minutes, including stopping the deadly Pettersson one-on-one.