PHILADELPHIA – In a game they had to have to stay in the series, the Philadelphia Flyers lost, 6-1, to Washington Monday night and are now in a nearly insurmountable 0-3 hole.
This was a collapse of special teams where the Flyers yielded five power play goals to Washington.
2016-4-18 NHL PHI vs WAS Game 3 – Playoffs
What started as an emotional response to the passing of owner Ed Snider ended in frustration.
“Our power play has confidence, and they keep giving us lots of practice,” Washington coach Barry Trotz said. “We just did what we did. We stayed to our game plan and script, and we took their best punch.”
The Flyers tallied first in the game as a response to the tribute paid to Mr Snider.
Michael Raffl scored just 57 seconds gone in the game to lift the crowd into a frenzy, but it was short-lived.
The killer goal came with the third Washington score when Justin Williams dumped the puck into the Flyers zone off the glass; the puck deflected to Mason who grabbed up the puck but it fell to the ice where Evgeny Kuznetsov collected it and scored to make it 3-1.
“I thought it was a real pivotal goal,” Trotz said. “We were at the end of the power play there. We rimmed it in, popped out in front. Kuznetsov got in on the puck and scored. I did, I felt it was a big momentum change at that point.”
If the Flyers had any chance of rallying, it ended with that goal.
“The third goal-against, the way it happened, the first time it’s happened to us in a while, it took the wind out of our sails,” Philadelphia coach Dave Hakstol said.
Mason made 21 saves in the loss.
Alex Ovechkin scored twice and John Carlson, Marcus Johansson, and Jay Beagle also scored for Washington.
“It’s a great feeling,” Ovechkin said. “We knew this game was going to be hard and we had to manage the puck well after we got the lead. I think they made a push in the end of the second, but they hit the post … but we stuck together and we managed the puck into the third. And then the lucky bounce and we get the third one, and then everyone on the bench knew they didn’t have any chance to come back in this game. We played solid, didn’t make any mistakes. It’s huge for us.”
2016-4-18 NHL PHI vs WAS Game 3 – Playoffs
Game 4 is in Philadelphia this Wednesday (7 p.m. ET; NBCSN, CBC, TVA Sports, CSN-DC, CSN-PH).
“We’re not going away,” Hakstol said. “We’re going to pick up and go back to work tomorrow like we always do, like we have all year long. And get ready to go out and win a game two nights from now.”
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