The season series between bitter rivals, the Philadelphia Flyers (29-22-11) and Pittsburgh Penguins (31-17-14), ended the same way it started. Philadelphia beat its rival 4-3 in the shootout on Saturday at PPG Paints Arena, with both teams picking up a point.
Tommy Novak, Rickard Rakell, and Erik Karlsson scored for the Penguins. Owen Tippett, Alex Bump, and Denver Barkey scored for the Flyers.
A high-scoring, low-shooting first 40 minutes produced six total goals, followed by a forgettable third period and overtime. Once again, a battle between the Flyers and Penguins ended in a shootout with the Flyers picking up two points.
Here is how we got to the final score.
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Penguins score early, Flyers answer fast
The Flyers came out of the gate with a new look. Alex Bump made his NHL debut, playing on the top line with Christian Dvorak and Owen Tippett. Denver Barkey took the spot left open by Bobby Brink on a line with Noah Cates and Matvei Michkov. That allowed Michkov to go back to the right wing. Trevor Zegras centered the third line with Carl Grundstrom and Nikita Grebenkin on his wings. Sean Couturier centered the fourth line with newcomer Luke Glendening and Garnet Hathaway.
The new-look Flyers did not get off to the ideal start. Egor Chinakov drew a holding penalty on Rasmus Ristolainen, putting the Penguins on the power play early. With about 30 seconds remaining on the power play, Tommy Novak (13) buried a wrister from the slot, putting the Penguins up 1-0.
It was not the ideal start, but it took just 54 seconds for the Flyers to respond. Trevor Zegras (30) found Owen Tippett (20) in the slot, who tied the game at 1. Cam York (19) earned the secondary assist on the goal, which marked his 100th career NHL point.
Each team traded power play attempts before the period ended, but neither scored. Luke Glendening got called for a high stick, but later drew a tripping penalty.
In the final two minutes of the period, Jamie Drysdale stood up for Cam York after he got crushed into the boards by Avery Hayes. Drysdale earned two for roughing, then he and Hayes each got five for fighting. So, the first Flyer to fight in the post-Nicolas Deslauriers era: Jamie Drysdale. Who would have expected that?
Bump get career goal No. 1
The Flyers killed off the remaining time on the Drysdale roughing penalty and got the play back to even strength.
However, just like in the first period, the Penguins scored about three minutes into the second period. The Flyers could not fully clear the zone, giving the Penguins’ attack a second life. Rickard Rackell (12) made the Flyers regret that as he ripped a wrist shot past Dan Vladar from the top of the right-side dot.
It took the Flyers 54 seconds to answer the Penguins’ first tally, and it took 1:08 for them to answer the second. Nikita Grebenkin (9) made a slick pass to Alex Bump in the right-side circle from behind the red line, and Bump (1) buried the shot through traffic for his first career NHL goal in his first career game.
The theme of quick responses continued. Rackell (15) won the offensive zone draw, and Chinakov (9) got the puck to Erik Karlsson (6), who sent a blast from the point to give the lead back to the Penguins.
It was not an immediate response, but 4:18 later, the Flyers answered. Noah Cates (20) kept the Flyers’ possession alive and found Matvei Michkov (17) on the lower half of the right side. He found Denver Barkey (3) cutting to the middle, who showed great patience before putting the puck past Stuart Skinner.
So, once again, it was a tie game going into the intermission, this time at 3.
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65 minutes were not enough
The third period was one of those forgettable periods of hockey. After a busy first 40 minutes of the game, the following 20 were simply boring. There were a combined 8 shots on goal, 4 from each team in the period.
Pittsburgh had two power play chances following a Christian Dvorak slash and a Carl Grundstrom high-stick. Fortunately for the Flyers, they killed off both.
That pushed the game to overtime. The extra five minutes mimicked the third period. There simply was not much going on. One notable sequence occurred early in overtime, when Trevor Zegras was on the ice with Matvei Michkov and Jamie Drysdale. Zegras had Drysdale crashing into an open net, but he could not get the shot off.
With 2:09 to go in overtime, Dan Vladar got called for interference, giving Pittsburgh the 4-on-3 advantage. The Flyers killed that off as well, but did not have time to follow up for any real chance.
So, to the shootout we went in a 3-3 tie.
Dan Vladar stopped all three Pittsburgh attempts, and Trevor Zegras did what he does, making a shootout goal look easy. The Flyers escape Pittsburgh with two points, ending the season series the way it started.
What’s next for the Flyers
The Flyers head back to Philadelphia on Monday when they take on the New York Rangers at 7:00 p.m. EST at Xfinity Mobile Arena.
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