In Chicago, The visiting Philadelphia Flyers scored a pair of goals in the middle frame on Wednesday in a 3-1 win over the Blackhawks.
Samuel Ersson made 21 saves in the win.
“They’re a skilled team,” Ersson said of the Blackhawks. “They’ve got a lot of skilled guys that can make plays. But it’s one of the teams that they’re taking chances. They’re taking more risk in their game and trying to go for it, and that’s kind of what we saw in the first period. They kind of burned us a couple of times and got a couple of opportunities off that.”
The Flyers improved to 30-20-7.
The Flyers took a 1-0 lead at 6:18 of the opening stanza on a strike by Travis Sanheim .
Colin Blackwell, who was the lone striker for Chicago, tied the 1-1, at 7:38.
“That was obviously really nice,” Chicago’s Joey Anderson said. “It was great patience by [Blackwell]. He had a great thought process to shoot against the grain there. Even seeing plays like that, like having [Bedard] back, guys start to feel a little more confident watching it. It bleeds through the lineup. Hopefully we get a couple goals like that, and more guys start feeling that confidence with the puck and can make more plays like that.”
Chicago dropped to 15-39-3, they are 1-9-1 in their last 11 matches.
“It’s disappointing,” Blackwell said. “We had some opportunities. Ultimately it came down to they kind of outworked us in some of the different aspects of the game. I thought that was up for grabs. It’s been a little while now, we haven’t been able to get a couple games in a row streaking some wins together.
“I hope the other guys feel the same way, too, but it’s frustrating. It’s just doing the little things in order to get the ship moving in the right direction.”
In the middle frame, Travis Konecny scored at 3:15 to give the Flyers a 2-1 lead.
“He kind of stutters with it in the neutral zone,” Flyers coach John Tortorella said. “I thought he was going to lose it, and he saw some ice. He has to concentrate on shift lengths. We’re always going to try and keep everyone accountable there. I’m never worried if he gets extended out there because he has such a great engine. He’s such a well-conditioned athlete.”
For Konecny, the goal extended his point streak to seven games.
“We talked between the periods, but to be honest, it wasn’t a clean game for us,” Konecny said. “We did change a little bit, and we were able to get the lead and hold on to it, but we can definitely move on from that one and start fresh.”
Garnet Hathaway scored at 11:35 of the second to make it 3-1 to the Flyers.
Arvid Soderblom made 30 saves in the loss.
“I think mentally, he’s a strong goaltender; he’s pretty solid,” Chicago coach Luke Richardson said. “Anybody’s going to feel like they’ve got to do more. But for a goalie, he was big and solid tonight. I think there were a couple of puck plays that they just read well, that they got a few chances off.
“Other than that, unlucky on that first goal. It would have been nice to get through that first period with that on our side. But you know what? I thought he battled the rest of the way.”
You must be logged in to post a comment.