Evgeny Medvedev scored the game-winner with 3:13 left in the third period, and the Philadelphia Flyers rallied from a three-goal deficit for a 4-3 victory against the St. Louis Blues at Wells Fargo Center. Ryan White skated the puck through the slot in the Blues zone and dropped a pass under the stick of St. Louis forward Dmitrij Jaskin back to Medvedev, who one-timed a wrist shot past goalie Jake Allen for his second goal of the season. Wayne Simmonds scored two goals, and Chris VandeVelde had a goal and an assist for Philadelphia. Goaltender Steve Mason made 26 saves. It was the first time the Flyers won after trailing a game 3-0 since Dec. 19, 2013, against the Columbus Blue Jackets, when they scored five goals in the third period for a 5-4 victory.
Robby Fabbri, Kevin Shattenkirk and Magnus Paajarvi scored for St. Louis, which had its three-game winning streak end. Allen made 27 saves. Vladimir Tarasenko's NHL career-high five-game goal-scoring streak ended, but he had an assist to give him at least a point in six straight. He has five goals and five assists during his streak. Paajarvi's breakaway goal gave the Blues a 3-0 lead at 9:11 of the second period, then Claude Giroux was whistled for hooking five seconds later. During the penalty kill, Pierre-Edouard Bellemare intercepted a pass at the Flyers blue line and broke in alone on Allen, who made a sensational toe save to freeze the puck on the right goal post. VandeVelde reached under a back-checking Alexander Steen and poked the puck in for his first goal in 26 games. Simmonds made it a one-goal game 2:10 later when he finished a 2-on-1 break with Jakub Voracek for his first goal in eight games.
The Blues survived the second period with the lead, but they had little else to show for it. The Flyers tied the game 51 seconds into the third period on a power-play goal by Simmonds, who tipped Voracek's shot past Allen for his ninth of the season.
It was the fourth power-play goal allowed by the Blues in the past 18 games; they had killed off the Flyers' first power play and 48 of 51 entering the third period. Medvedev won it with his goal to cap a nice bit of puck-handling by White. After White skated through two Blues players and left the puck for Medvedev, he snapped a shot from the slot through traffic and past Allen.
Philadelphia is 8-2-2 in its past 12 games and has moved within two points of the Ottawa Senators for the second wild-card spot into the Stanley Cup Playoffs from the Eastern Conference. The Flyers believe their ability to come back is because of a growing confidence in the systems installed by first-year coach Dave Hakstol. Hakstol said he's seen the players making needed corrections when things go off-kilter in the game plan.
Although the Flyers imposed their will on the game for most of the final two periods, the Blues dominated the first. Fabbri's one-timer from the slot 8:16 into the game made it 1-0, and then Shattenkirk's one-timer from the left faceoff dot for a power-play goal made it 2-0 at 14:51. When Paajarvi pushed the lead to 3-0, the Blues felt comfortable. Now they'll try to regroup Tuesday at the Boston Bruins, their final game before the holiday break.
Blues Quotes
Ken Hitchcock: "We kind of turned it into a track meet a little bit in the second. The shorthanded goal against hurt us a lot, gave them momentum and then the second goal ... the third goal's going to happen. The second goal's what gave them the breathing room, and then it just turned into somebody was going to score in the third. There was a lot of poor puck decisions in the second period. They made a lot in the first, and we made a lot in the second. Both teams pressured each other. They dialed it up in the second, and we started turning the puck over. We didn't manage it very well at all."David Backes: "We'll have to hopefully learn a lesson and one more before Christmas and we can go into Boston, a tough building, find two points in that barn."
No comments:
Post a Comment