Flyers Dominate the Struggling Blues Without Carter Hart

Written by: Max Dinenberg

Photo by: Broad Street Buzz

The Flyers absolutely dominated the St. Louis Blues, who have now lost eight consecutive games, by a final score of 5-1. 

It was a total team effort, but it started with backup goalie Felix Sandström getting the start due to an ill Carter Hart. Sandström was 0-3 in his three starts with a 3.77 goals against average. He came through tonight getting 28 saves on 29 shots leading the Flyers to victory.

“He’s given us some good minutes,” John Tortorella said on Sandström postgame. “He hasn’t found a way to win, we gave him some run support tonight. He’s worked hard… I’m happy for him because he gets the result and he made a couple key saves in key times. It was a 5-1 game but when your goalie makes a couple key saves, you never know where it turns if those pucks go in.”

The game got off to a fisty and chippy start with former Flyer Brayden Schenn and Nick Seeler getting into a fight in which Seeler dominated. Then just one minute later, Blues defenseman Robert Bortuzzo and Flyers forward Zach MacEwen got into a fight. This one was 50/50 with no one having an advantage. 

Blues followed that up with a shot off the post by Ryan O’Reilly and then Jordan Kyrou just missed a wrap-around attempt with a wide-open net. The Schenn-Kyrou-Buchnevich line dominated the Flyers in the first period.

There was no score after one period. Even though the Blues played last night, they dominated the period with more high-leverage chances, but the Flyers outshot the Blues 18-11.

Blues got the first powerplay of the game five minutes into the second period on a high stick by Zach MacEwen. The flyers killed off the first Blues power play, only allowing one shot on goal. That was the last time the Blues threatened to score for the rest of the period.

The Flyers struck first halfway through the second period with a beautiful goal. It started with a give-and-go between Ivan Provorv and Joel Farabee which then led to Provorov centering a pass from the left corner that bounced off the leg of Wade Allison. This was Allison’s third goal of the season. 

Six minutes later, some great two-on-one action between Owen Tippett and Travis Konecny led to the Flyers second goal. Konecny’s wrist shot in the right face-off circle found the back of the net, beating  Thomas Greiss above his right shoulder. This was Konecny’s fifth of the season with the lone assist going to Tippett.

Then with 3 seconds left in the period, and on 4 on-4 hockey, the prettiest goal of the evening was scored. A Blues turnover led to a perfectly executed tic-tac-toe goal from Scott Laughton to Travis Sanheim and then backdoor for Noah Cates. This was Cates’ second goal of the season.  

The Flyers dominated the second period with three goals and they outshot the Blues 9-5. 

The Blues began the third period by dominating the puck in the offensive zone. Sandström robbed Buchnevich of a goal on the powerplay off a one-timer to start the period. Then five minutes into the period, Blues captain Ryan O’Reilly scored his second goal of the season in the slot after a good feed by Ivan Barbashev.

It looked like the Blues had all of the momentum.

Then 82 seconds later, the Flyers responded as Lukas Sedlak scored his first goal as a Flyer. He deflected a puck to Greiss’ left after a shot from the point by Nick Seeler. Noah Cates also collected his second point of the game with the secondary assist. 

Owen Tippet added on with a wrist shot with 50 seconds left, putting a cherry on top of one of the best efforts the Flyers have given all season long. 

The struggles for the Blues continue as they lose their eighth consecutive game after winning the first three games of the season. 

The Flyers win their second consecutive game to move to 7-3-2 on the year. The Flyers will hit the road for one game on Thursday night in Columbus against former Flyer Jakub Voracek and the Blue Jackets.