Flyers hope to show Hart on road trip
PHILADELPHIA >> Perhaps it seems the Flyers are having another one of those up and down seasons. The past week could sort of attest to that philosophy, since they lost three straight games on the road in Colorado, Minnesota and Winnipeg from Dec. 11 through Dec.
15, then came home and turned in a four-game winning streak.
That beautifully culminated in Monday’s 5-1 comeback victory over the New York Rangers.
This latest streak of success has the Flyers back in the third playoff spot in the Metropolitan Division, cruising along at 21-11-5 in what has amounted overall to their best first half of a season in a lot of years. Yet their upward progress has come with some streaky static.
Not having had any kind of successful season start since 2011, the Flyers seemed headed for the autumnal dregs again in October when they kicked into a four-game losing streak that had them 2-31. But they quickly righted the ship with a three-game win streak, and have repeated that pattern ever since while holding steady through a bevy of injuries and the stunning news that one of their best young forwards, Oskar Lindblom, was in for a battle against bone cancer.
All along, the Flyers continue to improve. Now comes their annually tough holiday season road trip, which this year has them hitting the West Coast beginning with Saturday’s game in San Jose. It goes from there to Anaheim Sunday, Los Angeles on New Year’s Eve then to Las Vegas, Arizona and finally landing back East against a nearby division opponent, the Carolina Hurricanes, on Jan. 7.
“Our last road trip we had some injuries going around,” rookie Joel Farabee said. “Hopefully we can get some guys back healthy and yes, being on the road that long is tough. You have to be ready every night. So it’ll be a good test for us.”
It’s easy to lose track of who’s out in and who’s in for this ever-changing Flyers team, whose starting 18 skaters against the Rangers numbered several players who not long ago this season were with the Phantoms.
Farabee is one of them. Against the Rangers, he was back from a threegame suspension for a late hit against Winnipeg’s Mathieu Perreault, and he didn’t miss a beat.
Nor did he beat up on anyone.
“I actually felt really good,” Farabee said about his game Monday, in which he registered an assist and was a plus-2. “I don’t think there was any period of time where I didn’t feel good. Right from the start of the game my legs felt really good.”
As for the injuries, or at least a couple of them, the Flyers were without not only Lindblom, who is out for at least this season, but they’re still missing fellow forwards Michael Raffl, who has missed seven games with a broken finger, and Scott Laughton, out four games with a groin pull.
Raffl is looking ahead to returning Sunday in Anaheim.
• • • Defenseman Ivan Provorov said he felt a lot better Monday night after a virus had sunk him Sunday. Provorov, a noted offseason workout nut, isn’t exactly used to not being on his feet.
The guy is a fourth year NHL player and has never missed a game.
Like, ever.
And he wasn’t about to start with a fairly critical Metro Division game against the Rangers.
“I came in and I felt a lot better than I did last night,” Provorov said Monday night after the Flyers had put together a brilliant third period en route to the victory. “If I was able to play the game, contribute and help the team, then I knew I was going to play. It was tough at first but the more I was on the ice the better I felt.”
Provorov didn’t feel that well at the 6:44 mark of the second period. That’s when, quarterbacking a power play, he turned the puck over. Jesper Fast quickly turned that TO into the first goal of the game.
Considering all the energy that’s sapped and all the other icky things such viruses can cause, you could probably excuse Provorov for making such a mistake in that situation.
Or maybe not. While head coach Alain Vigneault said he’d “give full marks to (Provorov) for playing that game,” Vigneault added, “he’d be the first one to say he can play better.”
What Provorov did say was only that he was getting better all around.
“Just one of those nights where you don’t feel great, and after 24 hours I felt better,” he said.
•••
NOTES >> While Provorov looked under the weather and played that way, he also turned in 23 minutes, 20 seconds of ice time . ... Another defenseman picked up at least the offensive slack for the Flyers’ defensive leader. That would be Travis Sanheim, who had two goals and assisted on another. His biggest goal came with one and seven-tenths of a second left in the second period, where he was the first Flyer to beat goalie Henrik Lundqvist, leveling the game for the Flyers as they headed for the third period. “I knew there wasn’t much time left,” Sanheim said, “I didn’t know there was only one second left. It’s a good thing I shot it.”