Foerster and Brink

The kudos for Noah Cates are well-deserved. But both Tyson Foerster and Bobby Brink are also keys to that line’s success. Both wingers were buzzing before Foerster took a minor in the first which could have been a turning point in the game. And it seemed to be. The Jets are deadly a man up, and this was a ridiculous tic-tac-toe (with a slight deflection during it) put Winnipeg up 2-0. Ersson had little chance on that one as Nikolaj Ehlers buried it.

Brink (who nicely set up Foerster late in the first but again, no dice) continues to look like he’s playing for a decent bump in his next contract as a Restricted Free Agent. However, unlike the first meeting, the Cates’ line had their hands full more on this evening than in Winnipeg. The Mark Scheifele line was giving them problems, driving play most of the game and picking them apart at other times. Philadelphia jumbled the lines up a bit to start the second to try to find some momentum, but all that was found was a leaky goal by Ersson as Kyle Connor beat him rather cleanly for a 3-0 lead.

In the third Brink had a good wrister that Noah Cates jumped out of the way of. Unfortunately for Philadelphia, Comrie (who earned a shutout in his previous game against the Flyers) was solid.

Deadline watching, not scoreboard watching

One got the sense throughout the game that the Flyers were playing a great team who deserved their lead. Yet the team was playing with the sense one or two shoes were about to drop regarding trades. Clearly the Flyers aren’t trading to make themselves competitive for the stretch, so maybe that realization might have finally slapped the team up side the head. The cold, hard reality is the roster could be different for the Saturday afternoon game against the Kraken and not necessarily for the better. By the time the Jets made the line of Couturier, Owen Tippett and Travis Konecny look foolish for a 4-0 lead, it was basically a game to see what Michkov might do to improve his Calder Trophy aspirations.

Speaking of Michkov, even he took a little bit of a beating with some redness on his face but it didn’t appear to be very concerning He also was on the Flyers’ first power play. The opportunity didn’t amount to much outside of a Jamie Drysdale wrister which had Comrie making probably his best stop of the middle frame. He did break the shutout late in the game with an unassisted tally, his twentieth of the year.

Hard night for everyone, including the blueline

Two of the three defensive pairs were very offensive to watch on this night. After 40 minutes the top pair of Travis Sanheim and Cam York were at 70.97 and 67.86 percent in terms of chances for. Meanwhile Egor Zamula was the best of the rest, meaning the tandem of Jamie Drysdale (34.62 percent) and Nick Seeler (28.57 percent) were having a very, very off night.