Matt Niskanen
There was no sugarcoating this one after it was over. The scoreboard said it all. “We got our butts kicked today in all facets of the game,” head coach Alain Vigneault said.
The opportunity was there for the Flyers to take a 2-0 series lead after having what many viewed was only a B-minus, C-game from the Flyers. There were some who viewed Game 1 as a missed opportunity for the Canadiens, while others saw it as a game where the Canadiens showed they could hang around in this series. Man, did they prove that in Game 2.
622 days ago, the Flyers were a team in complete disarray. They needed a change and fired the GM. They followed by replacing the GM, firing the head coach and powering through with an interim coach and a rookie goalie in net. Now, they have claimed the top seed in the Eastern Conference for the 2020 Stanley Cup Playoffs.
Consider this win over the Tampa Bay Lightning on Saturday everything. The Flyers have the top seed in the Eastern Conference. Who would have imagined that a season ago? Here are 5 takeaways from Flyers-Lightning.
Nicolas Aube-Kubel scored two goals, Joel Farabee added another and Carter Hart made 23 saves to secure a 4-1 win over the Tampa Bay Lightning and claim the top seed on Saturday night.
There were players making their playoff debut, recent additions contributing, depth players stepping up in a big way and an overall defensive effort that completely shut down the powerful top line of the Bruins. Here are 5 takeaways from Flyers-Bruins.
When training camp started a couple weeks ago and the Flyers started to work back to where they were before the pause, the pairings remained the same and they have been unchanged since then. Alain Vigneault said he doesn’t plan to change them anytime soon.
Ivan Provorov was able to find an ice surface while spending the quarantine with his billet family near Wilkes-Barre. So it should be no surprise, after just two weeks of training camp, that Provorov jumped right back into his usual role, playing 25:39 in the Flyers 3-2 overtime win in an exhibition against Pittsburgh on Tuesday.
In total, 17 forwards of 18 in camp and 10 defensemen of 12 in camp made the roster. All four goalies from camp made the trip. Here is the Flyers final roster for Phase 4.
For the entire season, Ivan Provorov and Matt Niskanen have been united together. Assistant coach Mike Yeo, who runs the defense, said that they have been the quickest to get up to speed.
