FINAL SCORE: PHILADELPHIA FLYERS 4, VANCOUVER CANUCKS 1 

THE RUNDOWN

The Canucks came into their game down yet another centre, losing Bo Horvat this morning to a reported broken foot. They’re still a week out at least from seeing Brandon Sutter return to action, so that left the team more than a little depleted down the middle.
Despite that, Vancouver came out swinging.
It was a high-paced game from the start, with Philadelphia’s Jordan Weal going off for slashing early in the first to mark one of just two power-play opportunities for the Canucks all night.
They would be the far less disciplined team through the first 20 minutes, though, taking three of their own penalties before the first buzzer sounded and putting themselves down 1-0 on an incredible shot through traffic by Shayne Gostisbehere:
Not much Jacob Markstrom could have done there. Not only did the puck go through a screen five bodies deep, but a deflection off of Sam Gagner’s stick also changed the shot’s course at the last minute to fly past Markstrom’s shoulder and in for the first goal of the night.
The second period would see the bulk of the action, with three goals and three penalties all before the period ended.
First, Michael Raffl would capitalize on a centring feed in front from Jakub Voracek, tipping the puck in on Markstrom’s right side to widen Philadelphia’s lead to 2-0.
If there was a goal that Markstrom could have stopped, this one might have been it, although it certainly wasn’t a wide-open goal. At this point, he’d allowed the only two goals of the night – but certainly didn’t look like the goaltender who would finish with a sub-.900 save percentage, either.
The third goal was another Flyers power-play victory, capitalizing on Sven Baertschi’s interference penalty with a rocket from Claude Giroux.
Vancouver wouldn’t enter the final frame without getting on the board themselves, though.
The goaltender interference ruling has quickly become the NHL’s most inconsistent, with good goals getting waved off and clear goaltender interference getting overlooked on what seems like an almost nightly basis.
Brock Boeser would tally number 14 on the year when he chipped one past, Brian Elliott, putting the Canucks on the board in the process:
Baertschi would have his part in the goal reviewed on the request of Flyers head coach Dave Hakstol, with the argument that his stick impeded Elliott’s ability to make the save.
Watching it from up top, there’s definitely a case to be made for goaltender interference. If the tally had been waived off, it wouldn’t have been some huge injustice against the Canucks.
That being said, the biggest impediment that Baertschi seemed to place upon Elliott there was mental. If anything, his stick being there annoyed Elliott, possibly causing him to lose focus – but when he both managed to drop into the butterfly and kick his leg out in an attempt to make the save, he likely lost his case to be made that Baertschi’s stick prevented him from doing his job. Physically, he still looked capable of getting into position, and mentally, he was never pulled out of the play via lost sightlines from a spear, push, hold, or shove. So Flyers fans are likely pretty upset, but there’s plenty of evidence that keeping the goal was a fair enough ruling – especially given what a crapshoot goaltender interference is anyway.
It seemed as the third period wore on as if neither team would manage to get on the board.
Vancouver took the only penalty of the final frame when Alex Edler got called for slashing with about 6-and-a-half minutes to go. Markstrom was excellent on the penalty kill, though, robbing the Flyers of a quality scoring chance at least once, and Vancouver still couldn’t solve Elliott a second time as the period wore on.
When Vancouver finally pulled Markstrom, Wayne Simmonds would take advantage and pot an empty-netter. As the clock wound down, Vancouver had tarnished what they’d hoped would be a perfect homestand record, falling 4-1.

THE NUMBERS

No complaints here!
Against Michal Neuvirth, this game goes very differently. Against even a less-hot Brian Elliott, this game goes very differently.
Sometimes, you just run into a goalie who stops everything. I thought this was Elliott’s game by a country mile.

OBSERVATIONS

  • After losing ten straight, a number of Flyers fans were ready to fire the coach, the GM, and everyone in between. What went somewhat unmentioned, though, was that the club picked up five points during those ten losses, taking half of their games during the losing streak to extra minutes. It was almost as if they weren’t quite as bad as their admittedly horrific losing streak indicated. Sure enough, they’re now on a three-game win streak after tonight, sweeping their way through Western Canada in short order; while it seems bad that the team everyone wanted to blow up a week ago just beat Vancouver 4-1, the final score (much like their horrific November record) didn’t quite tell the whole story. At all.
  • Credit where credit is due; both goaltenders had a very good game tonight. Both only allowed one goal at even strength, and Markstrom had a number of quality saves scattered in there that made up for the goals he did allow – none of which were particularly easy. While Markstrom gets all the glory for his first career shutout earlier this week, though, this was Elliott’s game. He made a whopping 35 stops on the night, posting a .972 save percentage and earning his 200th career NHL win in a hair under 400 career games. After playing a huge role in earning his team those five points last month, he managed to pick up a pretty nice milestone (for reference, he’s just the 87th goaltender out of 755 all-time to hit it).
  • As good as Vancouver was at challenging Elliott, though, they hurt themselves significantly with their penalty volume. They took six penalties to Philadelphia’s two – and with a 33% conversion rate for the Flyers special teams, that sealed the deal.