The Philadelphia Flyers Have Done What No Team In NHL History Has Ever Done Before
Andy Devlin. Getty Images.Think about all the historic teams throughout the history of the National Hockey League. Some of the greatest dynasties of all time whose rosters were filled with some of the greatest players of all time. The Habs in the 70s. The Islanders of the early 80s. The Oilers in the late 80s. The Red Wings in the 90s/early 2000s. Richard, Bossy, Gretzky, Yzerman, the list goes on and on. And yet none of these teams nor none of those players had ever accomplished the feat the Philadelphia Flyers did last night. In fact, no other team in history has done such a thing.
Beat the Edmonton Oilers during the 2021-22 season.
The Flyers kicked off a 3-game Western Canada road trip last night. Their first task was going to be the hardest. A trip to Edmonton to face the 5-0 Oilers. Connor McDavid leading the league in points. Leon Draisaitl right there behind him in 3rd. The most lethal powerplay in the league. And the Flyers would again be without guys like Ryan Ellis and Kevin Hayes in the lineup. Pretty tall order for the Flyers, and especially a tall order for Carter Hart playing in front of his hometown crowd.
Is Carter Hart a perfect goaltender who is going to shut his opponents out 82 times per year? No. At least not yet. But early indications this season are that he's fully capable of being a rock solid goalie who is going to get you some key saves at key moments to make sure his offense can win the game for you? And he's only 23. There are going to be a couple of shaky moments along the way. But the fact that he closed this game out with 22 straight saves after giving up that 3rd goal against a deadly Edmonton offense that was clearly pressing? You couldn't ask for much more out of Carter than what we got last night.
Now I know that most of you come here to read my Flyers blogs for the statistical analysis, zone entry breakdowns, and perfectly transcripted quotes from mundane post-game press conferences. But right now? Well right now I want to talk about love.
Any of you fellas ever fall in love before? It hits you like a sack of bricks. Sucks you in like a tractorbeam. All of a sudden that person becomes the only thing you think about. Your world revolves around them and in your eyes, they can do no wrong. You may have only been in love for a short amount of time yet somehow you can't remember what life was like before they came into yours.
That's exactly how I feel about Cam Atkinson.
I'm in love! I'm in love and I don't care who knows it!
I mean holy shit. It would be damn near impossible for anybody to come in and make a better impression with this fanbase. Flyers fans have been BEGGING for a shoot-first mentality winger for years now. Literally the only thing this fanbase has been asking for every trade deadline since Jeff Carter left town. And not only does Cam Atkinson shoot the shit out of the puck any chance he gets, but Camuel L Jackson is out here scoring over a goal per game right now. 6 goals, 5 games. You do the math on that one, geniuses.
But it's just honey badger hockey. It's flying around the ice looking to just make smart, efficient plays. Nothing fancy. Not waiting around for the perfect shot. Just hustling his ass off on both ends of the ice and putting pucks on net whenever he has the chance. And obviously the scoring is going to die down at some point, as much as I'd love an 82-goal season. But even when he's not scoring, that honey badger game that Atkinson plays is going to be what makes him stand out the most and what this fanbase is going to keep loving about him. What an unbelievable trade that's looking to be.
The Other Guys
- Just want to highlight Claude Giroux stepping up and winning 5 huge faceoffs to close out that game last night. The jaded Flyers fan in me saw Konecny ice the puck trying to score on the empty net with a full minute left in the game and figured that was the kiss of death. That the Oilers would go and score off the next faceoff and the Flyers would piss away that extra point in overtime. But Giroux stepped up and won huge defensive zone draw after huge defensive zone draw. Add that to his goal to start off the game and Contract Season Claude is looking like he's going to be a total weapon this year.
- Thought we got a really good game out of Ivan Provorov last night. The more I think about it, the more I'm realizing the best Provorov nights are going to be the ones where you don't really notice him all too much. I mean you figure his assignment every night is going to be to contain one of the best players in the world. And I thought he did a solid job at that 5v5 against McDavid and Draisaitl last night. He made a few really good strong plays on the puck. He logged 25:16 of 5v5 minutes last night. McDavid logged 25:36. I know +/- is a dated stat but when that's your matchup on the night and you still end up a +3? Huge huge night out of Provy.
- Blocked shots were massive last night for a couple of reasons. First up, it shouldn't take rocket science to explain why blocking 26 shots from an offense as lethal as Edmonton's is huge. That's a team that is always going to generate a shit ton of offense just by way of McDavid being at least 2 gears faster than anybody else on the ice. Allowing Carter Hart to "only" make 34 saves as opposed to 50 is huge. But second of all, it's all about the team the team the team. The boys all selling out for one another and giving up the body to make the play.
Lindblom takes a fucking nuke off the boot there. You think he cares that his foot is probably shattered into a million pieces? Not a chance. Because it was for the boys.
- Still way too many unnecessary and terribly timed penalties for my liking. Hopefully that's something that just fixes itself as everybody starts to settle into the season. But you can't be giving teams like the Oilers any extra chances to beat you.
Time to do it all again tonight in Vancouver. Hope you all loaded up on coffee this morning. Keep it brewing all day because we've got even more Flyers After Dark.