The Philadelphia Flyers have apparently heard the news that the Canucks’ power play is uglier than a naked mole rat, but with far fewer wrinkles. Feeling pity, they decided to give the Canucks lots of practice, taking penalties early and often.
The Canucks were graced with eight power plays, including two long 5-on-3 opportunities. Philadelphia fans were, shall we say, displeased. Not with their team for taking so many blatantly obvious penalties, but with the referees, who noticed the blatantly obvious penalties and called them. As the fans in the arena so eloquently put it, “Refs, you suck.”
To be fair, there were numerous penalties that could have been called on the Canucks and were not, but they were somewhat balanced out by the penalties that were called against the Canucks, which were softer than Air Supply’s greatest hits. The Philly crowd was all out of love while I watched this game.
- For the first time ever, cousins Bo Horvat and Travis Konecny faced each other in the NHL. The cousins are two of the most dangerous players on their teams, not to be confused with Dangerous Cousins, which is something else entirely. Also, don’t confuse them with Cousins, who also played in this game, but was only a little bit dangerous.
- Just in time to play into all the discussion of whether Horvat is the heir apparent to the first line throne, his line came over the boards for the opening faceoff. Horvat led all Canucks forwards in ice time at 5-on-5, for what that’s worth given how much of this game was played on special teams. Horvat was even used for some spot faceoff duty in the defensive zone, taking the draw and then hightailing it back to the bench; he went 17-for-28 in the faceoff circle
- Like Jayceon Taylor with a few days worth of stubble, it was a rough game for Nikita Tryamkin, as he spent most of his ice time getting worked over by Sean Couturier. The Flyers forward welcomed Tryamkin’s attempted poke checks, dancing around him multiple times to create scoring chances. It was a perfect example of Tryamkin depending too much on his reach and not enough on his size, as he needed to square up and take the body.
- Michael Del Zotto could not stop high-sticking Daniel Sedin in this game. He got under the visor like Ian Poulter’s face during the Canucks’ first power play for a double minor, giving them an extended 5-on-3. Daniel, bloodied but unbroken, except for the skin on his face, opened the scoring with the two-man advantage, picking the top corner with Loui Eriksson screening.
- I originally wrote “screaming” instead of “screening” in the bullet point above, but I can’t imagine Loui Eriksson ever raising his voice. But that seems like it would be pretty effective: is there anything in the rules that says a player can’t just stand in front of the goaltender and scream at him while his teammates shoot the puck?
- The highlight of the power play was Jayson Megna pulling Jan Bulis’s favourite move: piggybacking on an opponent. He literally jumped on Matt Read and rode him down to the ice and didn’t get called for a penalty. Okay Philadelphia, I get the frustration with the refs in this one.
- After Konecny tied things up from a bounce pass by everyone’s favourite H.P. Lovecraft cosplayer Dale Weise, Nick Cousins nearly gave them the lead after Luca Sbisa turned the puck over at his own blue line. The Flyers had a 2-on-1 down low, but the one was Chris “Neo” Tanev and he made a stunning defensive play, knocking the puck off Cousins’ stick as he deked to the backhand with an open net.
- Del Zotto gave the Canucks another 5-on-3 after high-sticking Daniel Sedin at the end of the first period. As his penalty ended, Markus Granlund backhanded home a rebound off a deflected Chris Tanev slap shot that caught Steve Mason off-guard, mainly because TANEV TOOK A SLAP SHOT! It’s like Batman eating nachos: completely out of character.
- Just when it seemed like Tanev could do no wrong, he did a wrong. At the tail end of a penalty kill, he hung onto the puck a little too long and had his pocket picked by Read, who fed Pierre-Edouard “Beautiful Horse” Bellemare for a blistering one-timer to tie the game 2-2. Seconds later, Couturier victimized Tryamkin again, creating a turnover then going to the net to put in the 3-2 goal.
- It took 18 seconds for the Flyers to take the lead and 22 seconds for the Canucks to respond. Granlund went hard to the net off a faceoff and snuck the puck five-hole on Mason. It was hard to see how the puck went in at first, but replays showed Shayne Gostisbehere accidentally lifted Mason’s stick as he tried to check Granlund, making way for the puck like Genie for Aladdin.
- Megna had himself a great game, which comes at the right time for him with guys like Reid Boucher and Anton Rodin aiming to get in the lineup. He assisted on Granlund’s second goal, then set up Brandon Sutter for the 4-3 goal with a nifty backhand pass. With Wayne Simmonds coasting on the backcheck, Sutter had plenty of space to make like a quick brown fox and go over Steve “Lazy Dog” Mason.
- The Flyers tied it up again thanks to the Canucks’ penalty kill leaving Brayden “League Leader in Power Play Goals” all alone in front of the net. Bad PK! No biscuit!
- Michael “Replacin’ Mason” Neuvirth came in for the third period and made like an external hard drive and saved everything as the backup. Neuvirth made 14 saves in the third period and overtime, then stopped all three shooters he faced in the shootout to earn the win.
