By Mike Heverly
January 16, 2020
Flyers get lucky bounces and escape with the win over the Bruins
The Philadelphia Flyer (24-16-4) hosted the Boston Bruins (27-8-12) at the Wells Fargo Center Monday night in a back and forth match up. There was plenty of things that happen throughout the game with the veteran defenseman Zdeno Chara skating in his one thousand game of his career but the Flyer quickly looked to ruin the well achieved milestone.
Boston came out with the fire power as usual and jumped on a 2-0 lead early in the 1st period but Hayes potting a goal late in the 1st period. Boston came right back in the 2nd and took a commanding 5-2 lead in the second period. As the game was looking pretty much done after Boston took a good lead and do not blow leads with the team they have in front of them.
The Flyers strike back late in the second period bring the game within 2 to go into the third. Connor Bunnaman who was recently called up from the minors earlier that day, scored his first NHL goal to make it a one goal game early in the third period. Late in the third, Travis Sanheim comes up clutch with his 2nd goal of the game and first time in his career notching a two-goal game and as the game heads to overtime, the Flyers dominated most of the play as the Bruins goalie, Halak kept them in the game with some amazing saves throughout overtime and riding the Bruins into a shootout after five minutes of overtime.
The Bruins are one of the best teams in the league, they some reason cannot answer during shootouts, having a league worst (0-6) and the Flyers sit at (4-5) before the shootout begins. As much of the game was, it was back and forth in the shootout but on the goalie’s side as no one was able to score till the 5th round when recent All-Star selection Travis Konecny hits the post and goes in the net past Halak.
Boston sent up one of the most lethal shooters in the league and one of the most hated players in the league, Brad Marchand. Marchand goes in to puck up the puck at center ice to go for his attempt in the shootout and completely misses the puck and skates by it. By rule if the player doesn’t touch the puck it doesn’t count but as they reviewed real quick, it turned out Marchand tap the puck with his stick skating by and was ruled as his shot attempt.
As throughout much of the game it was heavily based on players who are not the stand out star and a lot of lucky bounces. The Flyers have been awful on the road and one the best teams at home. They just came back from a four-game road trip and lost all of them. Winning at home versus a league best team was boost all around the locker room. The Flyer hope to take in the momentum on the road versus another league best team, the St.Louis Blues.
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