Daily Local News (West Chester, PA)
Flyers able to block out hype, Knights
LAS VEGAS >> All of T-Mobile Arena was vibrating as each player was announced for the hometown Vegas Golden Knights, last year’s NHL darlings who surprised the sports world by reaching the Stanley Cup Finals in their inaugural season.
The Flyers, on the other hand, received a trickle of applause from the devoted hundreds that made the trip as they stepped on the ice almost unnoticed, an aside in the events of the day.
With 12:43 left in the second period, the pyrotechnics had dimmed and the bells and whistles were quieted. Most of the chants had become murmurs, and Wayne Newton had left the building. About two minutes later, Marc-Andre Fleury, the Knights’ goalie who led them to the Stanley Cup Finals, had left the ice after the Flyers’ secondperiod, three-goal outburst resulted in a 5-2 Flyers’ season-opening upset.
Wayne Simmonds led the way with two goals, with one goal each from Oskar Lindblom, Scott Laughton and that scoring machine defenseman Robert Hagg, who scored three goals all of last season and didn’t score his first goal until the 34th game of the season, Dec. 20.
Goalie Brian Elliott was solid, making 23 saves, and the defense, besides the first Knights’ goal and a late Shayne Gostisbehere turnover, was steady.
“We wanted to stay focused and keep our heads in the game,” Simmonds said. “We had to keep our mind on the task at hand. That’s a good team over there, and they had a great year last year. This place was rocking, and they had all of that going before the game, and in the intermissions.
“We had to keep focused. It is always nice when you silence the crowd. On the road, you don’t want to hear boos or anything. After a while, we didn’t hear anything.”
The Flyers had some issues in the first 10 minutes of the game and the first three minutes of the third, needing to kill off a twoman shorthanded situation with great work done by Hagg, Sean Couturier and Ivan Provorov. Overall, the Flyers held the Knights to 0-for-3 on the power play, not bad for the club that finished 29th in penalty kill a season ago.
“You had to be ready for a push and sometimes you need to weather it a little bit,” Elliott said. “I thought we did a good job and pushed back. The push back was pretty nice. I thought our communication was pretty good (on the penalty kill) and our execution was great.”
••• NOTES >> The Flyers are in Denver and will take on the Avalanche Saturday night (9 o’clock Eastern). ... Goalie Anthony Stolarz was placed on waivers Friday with the intent (and hope) of clearing him to be sent to the Phantoms. That would mean that this week’s waiver acquisition Cal Pickard, a 2010 second-round pick of Colorado who would go on to play 70 games with the Avs over two seasons, would join the Flyers in Denver and likely back up Elliott.