Carter Hart smooth in playoff debut
Makes 27 saves as Flyers edge Canadiens in opening game of series
In a game that easily lived up to its billing, goalie Carter Hart won the first bout with his counterpart idol and the Flyers doggedly protected a tight lead through the third period to nail down a 2-1 victory over the Montreal Canadiens in the opener of their best-of-seven first-round series at Scotiabank Arena in Toronto.
Though the Flyers came into this series having gone undefeated in a three-game seeding tournament which earned them the Eastern Conference’s No. 1 seed, and Montreal would have almost certainly missed the playoffs in any regular kind of finish to the 2019-20 season, Flyers head coach Alain Vigneault and his players had been preaching all along how close this series would be.
Consider Game 1 a perfect display of that characterization.
“There’s no doubt that this is what we expected, a low-scoring, tight-checking game,” Flyers coach Alain Vigneault said. “Two good teams. Good goaltending on both sides. Hardfought game.”
Hart made 27 saves and allowed just one Shea Weber
goal off a rebound, the Flyers goalie down and out of the crease at that point. It was Hart’s first real NHL playoff game of his career.
“We’re in the playoffs right now, so it’s crunch time,” Hart said. “We know Montreal is a good team. They come hard. I thought tonight it was a good battle ... whenever it’s a good battle it always feels rewarding at the end. So it was a good win for us.”
His counterpart that he says had been a teenaged hero to him, one Carey Price, turned aside 29 Flyers shots. Many of them came early, but in the third period the Flyers played superbly on both ends of the ice, allowing just six Canadiens shots on goal.
Hart went up to say hello to Price before the game.
“Just said hello and good luck,” said Hart, who turns 22 Thursday. And if this was his first playoff game and win ... you couldn’t really tell.
“Honestly, I just prepared the same,” Hart said. “Coming into the playoffs here, it’s a different situation for everybody, having a long break. But we all prepare the same.”
The Flyers jumped onto the scoreboard first via the power play.
Jake Voracek had stubbornly camped himself in front of Price. Voracek stayed upright long enough for Ivan Provorov to fire a shot that hit off Voracek and flew past Price for a power play goal 8:54 into the game for a 1-0 lead.
Scott Laughton was an inch or so away from doubling that edge when a shot he took with Price down on his belly deflected away. Replays showed it was Price’s stick — essentially being held out blade-flat by the goalie — that knocked the puck astray.
Luck, maybe. But how many goalies can make such a save?
That got the Canadiens going again in the second period, and gifted with a power play, they were buzzing around Hart’s net. He made a save on a Weber blast, but the rebound escaped into a crowd, and then slipped out into the slot, where Weber quickly closed and popped it into an unguarded side of the net for a 1-1 tie with 5:22 left in the second.
Provorov was critical of his team’s play in the second period, but noted his goalie hardly faltered.
“Hartsy did a great job, kept us in the game,” Provorov said. For the most part he did so with a lead.
Just 16 seconds after the Weber goal, a Travis Sanheim launch from the point was deflected down in front by Joel Farabee. Price was somehow able to block it off, but Farabee got to the rebound first and shoved it home for a 2-1 Philly lead.
The rest of the game was about protecting that lead, a plot underscored by an impressive battle between the sometimes spectacular Price and the even steadier Hart.
He came up big with 4:23 left on an in-tight shot by Brendan Gallagher.
A would-be Travis Konecny goal with just under a minute left was wiped out with a kick save by ... Shea Weber, in front of an empty Montreal net.
Finally, the Habs’ Nick Suzuki fired a shot from the top of the slot that had tied game written all over it ... but it left a black stamp on a power and bounced away with 26 seconds left.
That enabled Hart and the Flyers to regain themselves and close it down for an opening game win.