Flyers Defeat Bruins Behind Great Performance From Vladar
The Flyers returned home for the first time since February 5th to host the Boston Bruins yesterday afternoon, coming away with a hard-fought 3-1 victory in front of a sold-out Xfinity Mobile Arena. After a disappointing game in the nation’s capital this past Wednesday, the Flyers have now defeated two teams in a row that have been giving them fits in recent years in the Rangers and Bruins. Counting tonight’s victory, the Flyers are now 3-7 in their last 10 games against Boston.
The first period saw the Flyers get two powerplay opportunities,while looking better in terms of chance creation no goals were scored. In between these Flyers powerplays in an otherwise uneventful period, Nicolas Deslauriers and Bruins forward Tanner Jeannot had a great fight, which appeared to have been a planned fight from how it developed on ice.
Flyers goalie Dan Vladar and Bruins goaltender Jeremy Swayman had strong first periods. Vladar made back-to-backsaves to stifle a Boston 2 on 0 rush, while Swayman made multiple good stops during the Flyers’ powerplay opportunities.
The second period was all Dan Vladar in terms of the Flyers keeping this game tied. He made a big pad save on Bruins 30 goal scorer Morgan Geekie five minutes in, stonewalled Sean Kuraly on a breakaway and then made multiple big saves during a Boston powerplay at the tail end of the period. The Flyers were outshot 16-3, a testament to how important Vladar’s play was. One of the Flyers three shots happened to be a great chance for Christian Dvorak but was absolutely robbed by Swayman’sglovehand diving across the crease.
The third period had more of the same in terms of good goaltending for both teams, but goals were finally scored. A little under four minutes into the period, a puck being dumped into the Boston zone took a crazy bounce and shot towards Boston’s net front. Dvorak chased down the puck and then set up Travis Konecny with a slick pass as Dvorak was drawing Swayman away from the center of his net.
Eight minutes later the Flyers made it 2-0, with Konecny and Dvorak picking up points again assisting on a goal from Jamie Drysdale. Drysdale found a pocket of open ice towards the point and then received the pass from Konecny from the boards, took the open ice closed the gap and scored a nice wrist shot. Vladarunfortunately was unable to complete the game with a shutout, as the Bruins scored just over a minute after the goal from Drysdale. Bruins defenseman Charlie McAvoy deflected a shot from the point after crashing the net on a set play right after the faceoff. The orange and black were able to hold the fort after this though, with captain Sean Couturier scoring an empty netgoal and breaking his 31-game goal drought.
The Flyers have another back-to-back set of games, traveling to face struggling Toronto Maple Leafs team after last night’s victory. If the Flyers want to somehow have a miracle run and sneak into the playoffs this year, they will need to grow this two-game win streak and keep this momentum. Trevor Zegras mentioned it to the media recently, every game for the Flyers is essentially a playoff game at this point.
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- Tyler Grace/Olde City Sports Network
- Photo Credit: Thom Freeman/Olde City Sports Network
