If the Philadelphia Flyers ever figure out how not to get killed in first periods, they could be truly dominant. As it stands now, they're still pretty damn good. Philly skated to a 4-2 win over the San Jose Sharks on Tuesday night at the Wells Fargo Center for their fourth consecutive victory, bringing them to within one point of the Pittsburgh Penguins, and home ice advantage in the opening round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs (the Pens to have two games in hand on the Flyers).
Nicolas Aube-Kubel opened the scoring for a suddenly hot power play unit.
In the 20 games since the Flyers returned home from that horrible post-Christmas road trip, the Flyers' once mediocre-at-best power play is ranked tenth in the league, operating at 23.3% (14/60) after netting a goal against the Sharks' top-ranked penalty kill unit.
Shortly after potting the opening tally in the game's first 1:32, however, Philly went into a bit of a funk. The Flyers registered the first six shots on goal of the game and the proceeded to give up the next ten to SJ, including Joel Kellman's second goal of the year on a bad rebound by Carter Hart.
The Flyers were outshot 15-8 in the first, but rebounded nicely in the game's final 40 minutes. The newly assembled trio of Kevin Hayes between Travis Konecny and Scott Laughton picked up three consecutive goals- Hayes from Laughton and Konecny, Konecny from Hayes, and Hayes, again, from Laughton and Konecny.
From there, all the Flyers had to do was hold on, which they did, thanks to Carter Hart's performance. Just another .929 save-percentage performance for the 21-year-old netminder, stopping 26 of 28 to earn his 20th win of the season, 17 of which have come on home ice.
That's it. Now just listen to the postgame and we'll be cool.
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