Daily Local News (West Chester, PA)
Farabee makes his own luck against Sabres
When it comes to injuries, players always feel other players’ pain.
When it came to wanting to play, however, Joel Farabee couldn’t help but feel a little elated when a tough James van Riemsdyk injury gave him another chance to do that here.
“When Riemer went down and I got the call to come back up here, I was pretty excited,” said Farabee, the 20-year-old Flyers rookie. “The boys are playing well right now and I’m just happy to be a part of it.”
He not only was part of another happy night at Wells Fargo Center, Farabee finally got on the scoreboard with his first NHL goal since scoring twice against Colorado on Feb. 1.
Rarely did he feel so gifted as he did Saturday night, as the Flyers stretched their winning streak to nine games with a 3-1 win over the Buffalo Sabres.
The game, dominated for large portions by the Sabres, who nonetheless were finding it tough to break goalie Carter Hart, wasn’t iced until Farabee made a good play look lucky.
Buffalo’s Rasmus Ristolainen slid the puck in his defensive zone back toward goalie Carter Hutton, who went to pass it back out and succeeded only in half-shoveling it off Farabee’s stick. He then knocked the puck down and jammed it between Hutton’s
feet at 14:49 of the third period to stake the Flyers to the two-goal lead they would hold.
“I didn’t think it was ever going to come again,” Farabee said of scoring, “but obviously, that one felt good.”
According to Claude Giroux, who scored the other two Flyers goals, that Farabee play not only felt good, it looked good, too. Giroux pointed out it wasn’t an accident that Hutton didn’t manage to outlet the puck past Farabee’s stick, as the Flyers rookie charged in quickly to disrupt the Sabres’ goalie.
“That goal he scored, that’s all hustle,” Giroux said of Farabee. “If he doesn’t forecheck hard, he doesn’t score that goal. People might say it’s a lucky goal, but I think he hustled for that goal.”
Farabee hustled his way onto this team at a young age, but when Flyers general manager Chuck Fletcher managed to hustle up some checking line help by acquiring Nate Thompson and Derek Grant at the Feb. 24 trade deadline, Farabee was quickly hustled off to the Lehigh Valley Phantoms.
“When Chuck told me, I was pretty bummed,” Farabee admitted. “Obviously, you want to play in the NHL; you want to stay here for the playoff push. But I thought it was good. I got a lot of practice time down there and it definitely helped me out.
“Obviously we’re in a big playoff push here so whatever the team needs to do to win is what I’m going with. ... And yeah, I kind of knew if someone got injured or something like that, I’d probably be back up, so I wasn’t so worried. I had a lot of fun down in the AHL. It’s a pretty young team so guys are my age and it was a lot of fun.”
Farabee has accorded himself well in his two games back, while playing on a second line with Kevin Hayes and Travis Konecny. Farabee also knows that van Riemsdyk likely won’t be back until at least the first round of the playoffs.
So he’s going to keep hustling for all he’s worth.
“I think my mindset is the same wherever I’m playing,” Farabee said., “Like I had the opportunity to play a lot of different roles (with the Phantoms), and play a lot of minutes . ... I thought it was really good for me.”
••• Carter Hart won his seventh straight decision and he now is tied for the league lead for goalies with his 20th home win (20-2-2 at WFC). But he was lucky to survive after taking a shot where no goalie wants a puck to go. “Yeah, right underneath the Cup,” Hart said, “that one didn’t feel very good.” ... Riding a nine-strong streak, the co-leaders of the Metro next face the leaders of the Atlantic, as the Bruins visit Wells Fargo on Tuesday night.