by Mike del Tufo
Saturday January 18, 2014 In this night game, the Philadelphia Flyers had another impressive 3rd period come-back defeating the New York Islanders 6-4 in the 1st half of a home-and-home series.
For this game, Kevin Poulin started in net for the Islanders and Steve Mason for the Flyers.
Flyers forward combinations:
Giroux-Voracek-Raffl
Hartnell-Simmonds-B.Schenn
Lecavalier-Couturier-Read
Hall-Rosehill-Downie
Flyers defensemen pairings:
Grossmann-Streit
Timonen-Coburn
L.Schenn-Meszaros
Isles dominated early on and started the scoring at 7:43 when John Tavares notched his 22nd goal of the season. Tavares was left all alone by the net and he easily converted a pass from Thomas Vanek. Then at 11:54 Cal Clutterbuck scored short-handed to put the Isles up 2-0. The Flyers came roaring back before the end of the period thanks to defenseman Andrej Meszaros. He continued his strong play as of late scoring at 14:43 and 18:38 to tie the game.
Adam Hall gave the Flyers their first lead of the game at 1:45 of 2nd period. Isles re-tied it at 11:05 when Brock Nelson tipped a shot that evaded Mason. Brian Strait then scored at 14:00 to put the Isles up 4-3 and chase Mason. Ray Emery came in for him. The move gave the team a nice jolt.
The Flyers came out strong in the 3rd period with winger Jakub Voracek blasting in the tying goal at 7:14. Michael Raffl then gave the Flyers a 5-4 lead when he put in a rebound at 15:45. Matt Read ended the scoring with an empty-net goal at 19:04. It was a particularly strong period for the Flyers.
This marked the ninth time this season the Flyers won a game when trailing at some point in the third period.
Voracek on the win said, “We were pretty bad defensively again the first two periods. The third period I think we played a very good offensive game. We got on their defense, we got very good on the forecheck, and we came back, but it can’t happen every game like that. It takes a lot of energy and a little bit of luck to come back like that against good teams like the Islanders are.”
The Flyers’ next game is Monday in New York against the Islanders.