PHILADELPHIA – The Flyers seemed to have taken a commanding 2-0 lead in the third period over the San Jose Sharks, when James van Riemsdyk struck for a pair of goals.
The Sharks, or rather Tomas Hertl replied with a natural hat trick, scoring his third goal in overtime for a 3-2 win over the Flyers.
“I knew we needed to score some goals, so I tried to keep shooting,” Hertl said. “They give me the puck and I try to stay strong around the net. All the pucks are around the net, and it’s nice to see that I can help the team win some games with my goals.”
The Flyers dropped to 13-15-7.
“We came out [in the third period], we scored two quick goals, and I think that was pretty fortunate,” Philadelphia coach Mike Yeo said. “Because honestly, if it wasn’t for ‘Jonesy,’ we should have never been in that position. I think we were lucky to get a point tonight.”
Brent Burns assisted on all three Hertl goals.
“We had to have our best players, and he was ours tonight,” Sharks head coach Bob Boughner said of Hertl.
Adin Hill made 29 saves in the Sharks win.
“Even when we got down 2-0 … the last couple games he’s taken a huge leadership role and he’s saying, ‘Hey, all right we’re still in it, we’ve got this, let’s keep going, let’s keep working, we’re playing well,'” Boughner said. “So he was more than being a player in the game. He was pretty inspirational in the locker room and on the bench tonight.”
San Jose improved to 19-16-1.
“This is a line (Hertl, Meier and Alexander Barabanov) that’s been put together out of necessity,” Boughner said. “Let’s be honest, if ‘Tommy’s’ line’s not going tonight … we’re going to lose the hockey game. They took it upon themselves. They stepped up.”
Martin Jones made 44 saves in the Flyers loss.
“In the third period when the game’s on the line and things are tense, that’s when your habits come out, and I thought that’s when a lot of our bad habits came out,” Yeo said. “We’ve got to continue to build the right habits here and continue to show the benefit of doing the right things and what happens and the consequences of doing the wrong things. The self-inflicted harm that we’re doing to ourselves is something that we’ve got to get out of our system.”
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