Down 5-1 at the end of the first period, the Philadelphia Flyers mounted a furious comeback of epic proportions, not only tying it 5-5 in the third period, but for a very brief moment they had a 6-5 lead.
Unfortunately, Dylan Larkin’s fortuitous below-the-goal-line shot beat Hart to tie the game up forcing an overtime that solved nothing. The Flyers lost in the shootout after Lucas Raymond and Patrick Kane scored in the latter two rounds as Bobby Brink and Sean Couturier missed in their first 2 attempts.
Carter Hart made 31 stops on 37 shots in his first game action since dealing with his illness, while James Reimer collected his 3rd win of the season after allowing 6 goals on 43 shots.
In their final game before the Christmas break, the Flyers visited the Motor City in the second half of a back to back set after dropping last night’s game at home against Nashville. The Flyers’ lengthy 9-game point streak came to an end, however they entered tonight 7-1-2 in their last 10 games and 13-4-2 since November 10th.
Carter Hart returned in goal after missing the last 5 gams due to an illness, Cam Atkinson was placed on a line with Owen Tippett and Morgan Frost, Ryan Poehling returned down the middle between Joel Farabee and Bobby Brink, and Marc Staal made his way out of the lineup in lieu of Egor Zamula.
As for the Red Wings, they entered tonight having lost 4 straight game and 7 of their last 8 since acquiring Patrick Kane. Detroit ranks 5th in the league in goals and boast an offense with 7 players recording 19+ points including Alex DeBrincat’s team leading 15 goals and 28 points.
James Reimer returned in goal after dropping his last start to the Winnipeg Jets, sporting a 2-5-2 record with a 2.87 GAA and a .903 SV%.
FIRST PERIOD
At the 4:30 mark of the first period, Patrick Kane potted the first goal of the game after he jumped on the ricochet of Dylan Larkin’s post shot. The Red Wings were able to transition quickly into the offensive zone after they caught the Flyers snoozing on a bad line change.
Kane doubled his tally less than 4 minutes later after a fortuitous bounce off of Alex DeBrincat’s skate led right to Kane with a wide open cage for his 4th of the season at the 8:16 mark. Justin Holl’s point shot deflected off of DeBrincat’s skate to Kane at the side of the net with Hart moving the other way.
42 seconds later, Bobby Brink cut the deficit in half with a breakaway goal past the glove of James Reimer. Egor Zamula sent out a perfect outlet pass after waiting for Joel Farabee to past Justin Holl. Farabee then made a nice move in the offensive zone before finding Brink barrelling in on Reimer for his 6th of the season.
After a crunching open-ice body check from Garnet Hathaway on Olli Määttä, a scrum ensued with Hathaway, Nicolas Deslauriers, Christian Fischer, and Justin Holl each receiving 2 for roughing at the 13:17 mark.
With 6:08 remaining in the opening period, Travis Sanheim was called for a holding minor. The Flyers’ staunch penalty kill wasn’t able to hold the Wings off the board as Daniel Sprong’s deflection goal from Moritz Seider’s shot-pass from the point gave the home team a 3-1 lead with 4:55 left.
Then 33 seconds later, J.T. Compher jumped on a loose puck in the blue paint to give the Red Wings an unassailable 4-1 lead. Cam York had an opportunity to clear the crease but he completely whiffed on the puck, which allowed Compher to pot the easy goal.
With 18 seconds left in the period, Shayne Gostisbehere potted the Wings’ 5th goal of the period after a bounce of the board caught Hart off kilter. Kane’s point shot missed the net but ricocheted off the boards right to the streaking Gostisbehere for his 5th of the season.
The nightmare before Christmas was upon us with a 5-1 first period from the home team. The Wings also held a 13-11 shot advantage.
SECOND PERIOD
3:01 into the second period Christian Fischer was originally going to get called for a hooking minor but then after a bodycheck from the aforementioned Fischer, Nick Seeler dropped the gloves out of pure frustration. Seeler was given 2 for instigating, another 2 for roughing, and then was booted out of the game with 27 PIM in total.
36 seconds later, Sanheim ripped a point shot that got deflected by Sean Couturier who was parked in front of the net and got the puck past the outstretched glove of Reimer. 24 seconds after that another Sanheim point shot was deflected by Morgan Frost, who scored his 2nd goal in as many games.
With 14:42 remaining in the period, Zamula was assessed a cross-checking minor. 58 seconds into the man advantage, Gostisbehere was given an interference minor and an additional unsportsmanlike conduct penalty, giving the Flyers an extended power play once the 4-on-4 ended.
The Flyers clawed their way back to make this more of a game but still trailed by 2 goals entering the third period. The Flyers also outshot the Wings 14-9, giving them a 25-22 shot edge after 40.
THIRD PERIOD
5:51 into the third period, Hathaway deflected a Scott Laughton point shot with traffic in front of Reimer to cut the deficit to just 1 goal. The Flyers took the puck back into the neutral zone before setting up with quick passes before Laughton slowly entered the zone and fired a shot through traffic which ended up being deflected for Hathaway’s 3rd of the season.
After Cam York shoveled the puck out of the zone, Atkinson tried to aggressively get the puck off of Michael Rasmussen’s stick but ended up tripping him instead, sending the Wings onto a very important power play with 9:47 left to play.
The ultra-aggressive penalty killing Flyers didn’t let their foot off the pedal as they provided 3 scoring chances down a man before Hart made a huge stop on Lucas Raymond at the tail end of the power play.
With 6:30 left to play in regulation, the Detroit Red Wings killer in Laughton finished off a play in the blue paint to tie the game after Reimer was handcuffed by a Tyson Foerster point shot through traffic. Laughton’s 7-game goal streak against Detroit was snapped in their last game but he came up big on the last 2 goals.
1:23 later, Owen Tippett gave the Flyers a lead after he followed his own shot that Reimer could not handle. Off the rush, Tippett ripped a seed of a shot that Reimer initially stopped but the puck slowly trickled behind him and Tippett was the first one to the puck for his 12th of the season to absolutely stun the Wings.
Unfortunately, that fun feeling didn’t last too long as Larkin tied the game back up after his shot from well below the goal-line snuck past the tiniest space between Hart’s skate and blocker with 4:30 remaining.
The Flyers mounted the furious comeback before taking the lead but that was short lived after Larkin’s fortuitous goal. Nevertheless, after trailing 5-1 after the first 20 minutes, forcing overtime was not expected. The Flyers held a 39-31 shot edge through regulation.
OVERTIME
After a rough first game back for Hart, he came up with some big stops in the early goings in overtime to keep the Wings off the board and giving his teammates a chance to counter attack the other way. Reimer made a few big stops himself but several chances zipped the net high and wide.
No save was bigger than Hart’s pad stop on Gostisbehere’s one-time opportunity with 10 seconds remaining in the overtime period.
That massive stop forced a shootout for the 4th time this season for Philadelphia and just the first time for the Wings.
SHOOTOUT
Alex DeBrincat: miss
Sean Couturier: miss
Lucas Raymond: goal
Bobby Brink: miss
Patrick Kane: goal
Kane’s shootout goal won the game for Detroit after the Flyers almost pulled off the comeback.
UP NEXT
The Flyers will come out of the Christmas break and embark on the dreaded Western Canadian road trip with their first visit being in Vancouver (10:00pm ET, NBCSP) on the 28th of December.
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