Sean Couturier
When the dust settled from Tuesday’s game against the Columbus Blue Jackets, the scoreboard read 5-1 in favor of the Flyers. It hardly felt like a game that the Flyers had won by four goals in rather convincing fashion.
Claude Giroux became the Flyers all-time leader in power-play assists with 235, getting the record-breaker on a Jake Voracek power-play goal to cap the scoring in a 5-1 win over the Columbus Blue Jackets.
The Flyers currently hold the final wildcard spot in the Eastern Conference with 71 points. That is just one point behind the opponent for the next two games, the Columbus Blue Jackets, who technically hold the first wildcard spot with 72 points though they are tied for third in the division with the Islanders.
In Saturday’s game against the red-hot Tampa Bay Lightning, the Flyers fell behind early and fell into a 3-0 hole again. Instead of erasing the deficit, the Flyers were down by two in the third and challenging to cut into the deficit further before they made the one mistake that did them in. The Flyers got two goals in short order after falling behind 4-1 with under eight minutes to play in the third, but were not able to complete the comeback in a 5-3 loss to the Lightning.
The Flyers final game of a three-game road trip comes against the Tampa Bay Lightning. Much like the first meeting against the Lightning, Tampa enters as the hottest team in the league, currently on a nine-game winning streak, just as they were when they paid a visit to Philadelphia on Jan. 11.
Tyler Pitlick, Nicolas Aube-Kubel and Scott Laughton all scored to help the Flyers to a 4-0 advantage. And while the Panthers managed to close the gap to two in relatively short order to start the third period, the damage had already been done by the Flyers.
It was the Flyers jumping out to a 3-0 first-period lead and extending it to 4-0 by the end of the second. Two quick Florida goals threatened the Flyers lead, but they added two late insurance goals to seal a 6-2 win over the Panthers.
The Flyers next opponent is one they defeated just days ago. The Flyers took care of the Florida Panthers in a 4-1 win on Monday night. Now the two teams meet again in Florida on Thursday night.
Less than a minute after tying the game to erase a 3-0 deficit, the Flyers surrendered the game-winning goal to Ryan Pulock with 38.9 seconds left in a 5-3 defeat to the New York Islanders.
Wins for both the Flyers and Islanders on Monday set the stage for a meeting between the two teams on Tuesday. The two teams are separated by one point in the standings.
