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Making First Lady Jill Biden Happy: Thoughts on Flyers 7, Capitals 4

Anthony SanFilippo

By Anthony SanFilippo

Published:

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Photo Credit: Geoff Burke-USA TODAY Sports

After two consecutive losses to the Boston Bruins last week, the Flyers needed a lift as they arrived in Washington on Sunday. And they got it – from some unexpected sources.

First, there was the news that Sean Couturier would return to the lineup – likely a couple of games earlier than originally expected.

Then there was word that Phil Myers would be back in the lineup again, and although his normal partner Travis Sanheim didn’t play because of an undisclosed injury/illness, it made for an opportunity for Myers to play on the top pair for the first time with Ivan Provorov, something fans expected might happen all off season once it was learned that Matt Niskanen had retired.

Heck, even mid-game the Flyers got some unexpected social media love – from a few blocks away at the White House:

Yeah, that’s not something you see every day.

Neither is a Scott Laughton hat trick, a Robert Hagg goal, a seven-game point streak by James van Riemsdyk, or three assists from Joel Farabee – and yet, they happened.

And so did two goals from Couturier – including the game-winner – and some stellar shut-down defense in the third period as the Flyers actually closed out a game in regulation when they had a third period lead for the first time in a while.

Carter Hart made 33 saves and the Flyers outlasted the Capitals in a wild game, 7-4, to once again draw even with Boston in points atop the East Division (Boston remains ahead of the Flyers on tiebreakers).

It didn’t start well for the Flyers, who got behind early, 2-0. But Laughton’s first goal with only 87 ticks remaining in the first period gave them a spark. His second goal, just 2:29 into the second period, lit the flame, and although Washington would take another lead, the Flyers would overcome it, and although the Caps would tie it one more time, some third period changes to the Flyers lines made all the difference and the orange and black smothered Washington, out-scoring them 3-0 and holding them to just seven shots after the Flyers retook the lead, a few of which were in garbage time once the game was in-hand.

Let’s discuss how all of this happened and how the Flyers, who were outshot and out-chanced once again, found a way to improve to 8-3-2.

1. Coots and the Lineup change

When Couturier started the game for the Flyers, he played all of his 5-on-5 shifts on the fourth line centering Nicolas Aube-Kubel and Michael Raffl.

For two periods, that’s where he was. He only played a little more than nine minutes through those two periods as well. It was obvious that the game plan was to ease Couturier back in. Heck, he had an abbreviated training camp, played no exhibition games, and then got hurt on the first shift of his second game of the season, and then missed three weeks with a costochondral separation – which is when your rib separates from the cartilage in your breast bone.

Couple that with the fact that he likely made it back to the lineup a few days early, and easing him in made the most sense.

But, with the game tied 4-4 after two periods and the Flyers just looking really sloppy on the ice, especially in their own zone, coach Alain Vigneault knew he had to call on Coots to do just a little bit more.

This was evidenced by Coots taking the first draw of the third period on a new-look line with Raffl and Jake Voracek.

And so it was, just 31 seconds into the third period, this happened:

Nice work by the line. Nice effort by Justin Braun to get the shot to the net, and excellent work by Coots to get to a good scoring area where he took the touch pass from Raffl and scored the game-winner.

But that wasn’t it for Couturier. Nope. The reigning Selke Trophy winner then led the charge for a defensive shutdown of the high-powered Caps.

Washington peppered the Flyers for 30 shots on goal through two periods. They had a grand total of seven in the third, and only four of those came with the Flyers leading by one.

And who seemed to be out there every other shift? Coots.

Of course, he was out there at the end of the game as the Flyers were trying to protect their lead, and he scored an empty netter as well.

He also picked up an assist on Hagg’s goal, finishing with three points, a plus-4 and a Corsi For percentage of 51.85, which is excellent considering he’s often on the ice against top-end talent.

There’s a reason he’s considered the Flyers most important player. The fact that they weathered 10-plus games without him and still find themselves battling for the top spot in the division is a bonus for them. Coots isn’t going to suddenly make them Stanley Cup favorites, but he is going to make a difference. A huge difference. Hell, he already has.

2. Scott, Scotty, Laughts

It doesn’t matter what you call him, Laughton had a goal for each name that’s available.

But before we get to Laughton’s hat trick, the first of his NHL career, it’s worth noting that since Vigneault put this third line together – JVR/Laughton/Farabee – they’ve been the Flyers best line, game-in, and game-out.

I’ll talk more about JVR next segment, but his play on both ends of the ice has been elite. Vigneault couldn’t stop reiterating how much he is playing the right way in all three zones. His active stick in the defensive zone or in the neutral zone is frequently the cause of chances the line creates.

Laughton and Farabee have skated hard and been the beneficiaries of JVR’s work.

In this one, JVR wasn’t the guy making the deft passes to set up the goals, but Laughton still was able to get to the net and make things happen.

His first goal was probably the most important:

It was a rush with defenseman Erik Gustafsson joining the play. It was created by another nice defensive zone play by JVR.

There was some nice passing between the trio, and Farabee’s pass to Gustafsson was tape-to-tape. Gus followed his initial shot with a second one that hits both the crossbar and the post and then Laughton beats Brenden Dillon to the loose puck and jams it home.

This was important because the Flyers were being completely outclassed in the first period and were doomed to go into intermission down two goals. Getting this one, and trimming the lead to one was huge. It changed the entire dynamic of the second period.

Of course, Laughton’s second goal happened pretty quickly into that wide-open and crazy second period, setting the tone even further:

As you see from the replay, it all starts with JVR stripping Alex Ovechkin in the Flyers’ zone, creating a rush, they get a good zone entry, work hard along the wall to keep the play alive, and then Farabee makes a nice touch pass to Laughton to score from a tough angle and tie the game.

The goal that secured Laughton’s first hat trick since his final season of junior hockey ended up giving the Flyers the insurance marker they needed to finally have a sense that they could close out a game they are leading in the third period against a quality opponent:

Laughton does a lot of this work himself. He collects the turnover by Washington at the Flyers blue line and starts out on a 2-on-1 with Farabee. He makes a nice pass to Farabee, whose shot is stopped by Craig Anderson, but Laughton never quits on the play, keeps skating to the net, and grabs the rebound and deposits it into the net.

Take away Laughton’s pointless penalty with seven seconds to go against Boston last Wednesday and this line has been pretty flawless since being put together.

3. Talking JVR yet again

Reiterating what I mentioned earlier, this is seven-straight games with points for JVR. He has climbed to fourth in the NHL in points. He actually stretched his streak to eight games with the secondary helper on Laughton’s second goal – not that the NBC broadcast realized that. They started talking about it in the second period after he scored this goal to give the Flyers a 4-3 lead:

https://twitter.com/HockeyHoundShow/status/1358488854387433478

This was a bad turnover by Ovechkin, and after this goal, Caps coach Peter Laviolette yanked Vanacek and replaced him with Anderson. Guess he had seen enough of his goalie constantly dropping to his knees early and leaving corners for guys to shoot at.

Nevertheless, this goal was JVR’s 100th as a Flyer. He now has 18 points this season in 13 games, fourth best in the NHL. His seven goals are tied for sixth-best in the league. His five power play goals are tied for first in the NHL. And, his 11 assists are tied for seventh in the league.

This is definitely the best start in his career, and it’s arguably the best hockey he’s played in his career. He credits talking to Vigneault and working out the best way forward for himself. He agreed to commit to better play in his own end, while Vigneault allows the players to play their own game in the offensive end.

It’s good give-and-take between coach and player, and it’s lead to 13 games of great success. The JVR watch is now on every game to see if he can keep it rolling.

4. Hagg-itzer 

Robert Hagg was likely going to be a healthy scratch were it not for Sanheim’s untimely undisclosed injury/illness.

Nevertheless, Hagg made up for it by providing some rarely-seen offense:

Little known fact: Hagg was a really good offensive defenseman in junior hockey. The Flyers molded his game into what it is today. Still, you shouldn’t be surprised by that bomb that he can unload from time to time.

It was a great goal for the rotational defenseman, but I want to point out the play of Raffl on this goal. Not only does he do a good job of straddling the blue line to keep the play onside, but then he recovers and executes a perfectly timed jump screen that completely throws off Vanacek, giving him no shot to stop the blast from Hagg.

It’s little things like this that are often missed when watching as a fan, but Raffl had a superb game. He was a plus-4 in a game for the first time since April, 2018 and yes, it’s a career high.

5. Good goaltending – even if you didn’t think so

For the first time I saw some anti-Hart sentiment on Twitter. Fans are getting frustrated that he seemingly gives up 3-4 goals in games a lot.

But keep in mind that were it not for Hart, the Flyers don’t win this game. I mentioned that he had 33 saves, but he had so many that were huge – especially in the first two periods when the Capitals were simply firing at will.

It’s easy to sit there and say his 3.49 goals against average ranks 48th in the NHL and his .897 save percentage ranks 39th in the league, and that’s subpar.

But look at his performances and look at the goals allowed and look at the mistakes in front of him and tell me he’s to blame.

You can’t.

Look, I’ve been a voice telling you to temper your excitement about Hart since he broke into the NHL. He’s a good goalie. He’s always going to be a good goalie. I don’t know if he ever reaches the “great” plateau. Maybe he does, maybe he doesn’t. But he’s good enough to backstop a Cup contender. Look at some of the goalies that have won Cups in the past decade and let me know if they are “great” or not.

You don’t need a great goalie these days. It’s not the era of 2-1 games night in and night out where the goalie is always the difference and the best of the best tend to win.

Now, you just need to be a good goalie to win. Carter is that already – and he’s still so young. He’ll get better, and as he does, so will the team, but I don’t think Hart has had a bad game since he shattered his stick in frustration following the 6-1 loss in Boston last month.

Maybe the fourth Caps goal today is a “like to have it back” goal. Maybe. It looked like Hart lost his balance on the play and once he did tried to do all he could to stop the puck – on the stick of Nicklas Backstrom all alone just outside the crease – and couldn’t. Other than that, Hart is 3-0-1 in his last four starts and despite allowing 11 goals, hasn’t let in any cheap ones.

Flyers fans need to stop going to extremes. Give the kid a break, but also don’t anoint him as a savior yet. Neither reaction is beneficial for a good, young goalie who is still improving.

6. It wasn’t all Super, Sunday

We talked about all the good, but again, the Flyers had a bad first period. It was kind of even early in the period, but once Alex Ovechkin decided to make today his personal playground hockey day, it started to snowball.

Ovi registered four points, two goals and two assists, to have a hand in each Washington goal. And the Caps were dominating the Flyers (shots were 30-14 at one point late in the second period), meaning the Flyers were again, off their game, despite somehow being tied at four after two.

Maybe it was they simply didn’t have an answer for the Great Eight.

Here was the first goal:

Hart had a chance on this one and got a piece of it as it glanced off his shoulder pad. But, he was a hair too deep, and that’s why the puck rocketed into the top corner and not over the net.

Then there was this goal by Ovi that Phil Myers is glad no one asked him about in post-game interviews because the team won:

Ovi actually got the secondary assist because Backstrom makes a sneaky quick touch pass to Wilson that allows for more net to be shot at, but the dangle by Ovi that posterizes Myers is something that only very few players can do – and Ovechkin is one of them.

In the second period, Ovi responded to Laughton’s back-to-back goals with his own second marker, No. 711 of his career:

This is one of the goals fans were all over Hart for, but Hagg goes to block the shot and misses and that effort is what ends up costing Hart and the Flyers because the goalie loses site of the puck for a millisecond, and it’s enough for him to not cover the post, which the puck hits and goes in. That was unfortunate.

The last Washington goal, Ovi sets up Backstrom, but what’s Farabee’s responsibility here? –

That’s got to be a blown coverage, right? Right?

Anyway… Here’s hoping Tuesday’s game between these two teams will be equally as entertaining, and we get more Flyers tweets from the White House.

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Anthony SanFilippo
Anthony SanFilippo

Anthony SanFilippo writes about the Phillies and Flyers for Crossing Broad and hosts a pair of related podcasts (Crossed Up and Snow the Goalie). A part of the Philadelphia sports media for a quarter century, Anthony also dabbles in acting, directing, teaching, and strategic marketing, which is why he has no time to do anything, but does it anyway. Follow him on Twitter @AntSanPhilly.

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