Flyers’ 5-3 Loss To Vegas Starting Off Home Stand
The Flyers came back to South Philadelphia after an unsuccessful three game road trip to host the Las Vegas Golden Knights starting off their seven game home stand. With the recent firing of former GM, Chuck Fletcher, this is the Flyers’ first home game with interim GM, Daniel Briere.
Unlike the Flyers, Vegas’ season has been successful as they’re the current leaders of the Pacific Division. The challenge the Flyers had to face tonight was the speed Vegas has, which is one of Philadelphia’s biggest problems this year.
Philadelphia started Sandstrom in net as Carter Hart was ruled out due to flu. Vegas started newly acquired Jonathan Quick who spent a short amount of time with Columbus prior to the trade deadline. Both teams were going back and fourth and managed to have an even matchup in the first period. While, Pavel Dorofeyev, was the only player to get a goal in the first period giving the Knights a 1-0 lead it was evenly matched.
The second period was a different story as Vegas managed to have majority of puck possession. Vegas’ lead increased by two as Theodore got one behind Sandstrom. Quickly responding, Travis Sanheim was able to give the Flyers life after scoring his fifth goal of the season. The Knights responded giving themselves a 3-1 lead heading into the third period as well as a power play.
The third period seemed doomed as Vegas advanced their lead 4-1 early on. Nick Seeler who has been a burst of energy was able to give Philadelphia life after his goal of the year. With the Flyers trailing 4-2 it was still possible to come back and that’s what Morgan Frosts’ goal did. With Philadelphia only trailing by one goal it became an intense third period, but the comeback wasn’t in Philadelphia’s odds as Vegas was able to get an insurance goal on the Flyers’ empty net.
GOAL. OF. THE. YEAR. #VGKvsPHI | #FueledByPhilly pic.twitter.com/WafLY7YCnZ
— Philadelphia Flyers (@NHLFlyers) March 15, 2023
The Golden Knights won 5-3 which was not the outcome Philadelphia was looking for after the previous road trip and front office changes. After the game Morgan Frost told me when asking the Flyers’ close comeback in the third period what went wrong. “I thought we gave ourselves some pretty good looks. We go down another one and we were close to coming back. We played pretty well in the third.”
After the game Tororella commented on the effort that he saw tonight, but acknowledged that the penalties that the team draws ended up critically hurting the team as it’s hard to recover from them.
With the Flyers having six remanding games of their longest ever home stand it won’t be easy as Buffalo comes to town on Friday for a 7pm puck drop.
