Flyers Rob The Islanders In Broad Daylight
Another night, another middle finger to actual hockey.
Let’s get the facts out of the way before your blood pressure spikes: the Flyers spotted the Islanders a 2-0 lead like they were running a charity, then remembered they have Trevor Zegras and a shootout button installed on the bench. Tyson Foerster and Sean Couturier scored 22 seconds apart (because, of course, they did), and Zegras potted one in regulation. Then they went full Harlem Globetrotter in the skills competition, and Samuel Ersson only had to make 18 saves because the Islanders apparently forgot how to shoot until the second period.
Final tally: 4-3 Philly in the league’s most ridiculous participation-trophy format. Again.
This is the Flyers’ fifth shootout win in five tries this season. Five. For. Five. No other team has more than three. Over the last four years, they’ve won 17 of these circus acts, more than anyone else in the league. At this point, the NHL might as well just flip a coin when these two teams play and let Zegras spin around center ice for content.
Zegras, by the way, is now 17-for-25 career in shootouts and a perfect 4-for-4 this year. That’s a 68% success rate, the best in NHL history for anyone dumb enough to take at least 20 of these things. The man treats breakaways like TikTok dances: effortless, humiliating for the goalie, and guaranteed to go viral.
Photo Credit: Leigha Grace/Olde City Sports Network
Tyson Foerster? Kid’s got nine goals already and is quietly on an 18-in-28-games heater dating back to last March. That’s tied for ninth-most in the entire league over that span. Yeah, the same Foerster you barely noticed last year is suddenly cooking like he’s mad nobody invited him to the party sooner.
Couturier decided to wake up, too, scoring in back-to-back games for the first time since the Obama administration. Emil Andrae, rookie defenseman, keeps sneaking onto the scoresheet like he’s stealing bases.
Meanwhile, the Islanders did Islander things: slept through the first period, remembered they have NHL players in the second, then rolled over in the shootout because their best idea was sending out guys who couldn’t beat a cardboard cutout of Carey Price.
This is the second time in two meetings this season that the Flyers have beaten the Isles in a shootout. At this point, it’s not a rivalry; it’s a heist. Philly’s basically running a protection racket on Long Island: “Nice arena you got there. Shame if someone won another breakaway contest.”
The Flyers are now 5-2 in their last seven road games after starting the year looking like they’d rather be anywhere else than an opposing rink. Turns out all they needed was to turn 25% of their games into a skills competition they literally cannot lose.
Hockey purists are somewhere punching drywall. The rest of us are just laughing because the Flyers have fully weaponized the dumbest rule in sports and are riding it straight to free points.
Keep this up, and they won’t just make the playoffs; they’ll win the Metro on a technicality while the rest of the division screams into the void.
Philly hockey, baby: ugly, chaotic, and somehow unbeatable when the game stops pretending to be a team sport.
See you in the next shootout.
Jesse Bell - Olde City Sports Network
Photo Credit- Leigha Grace/Olde City Sports Network
