Hart’s miscue spurs Devils to victory
Carter Hart gave up a bad bounce goal in Thursday night’s loss to Tampa Bay and called it one of the worst of his pro hockey career.
On Saturday night, another puck on an unexpected play wound up behind the Flyers netminder at a crucial juncture in the game and this time luck had nothing to do with it.
With the Flyers playing admirably and holding the Metro Division-leading New Jersey Devils to a 1-1 tie after two periods, Hart stopped an entry puck behind his net early in the third period and tried to clear it.
But the attempt failed miserably. The puck bounced off New Jersey’s Miles Wood (with Flyers defenseman Nick Seeler nearby) and right to teammate Dawson Mercer for an easy tap-in at 1:49.
That marker sent the Flyers on their way to a 3-2 loss at the Wells Fargo Center.
Jack Hughes added a third New Jersey goal at 6:56 when his initial shot hit Hart’s mask and the Devil sniper planted the rebound.
The Flyers got close when Lukas Sedlak scored with 4:48 to play but that’s where the comeback attempt ended. Joel Farabee put a puck in the net with 4:10 left on the clock but that play was waved off by officials. Morgan Frost was standing in the crease when the puck entered the net.
After the game, Hart said the breakdown behind the net on Jersey’s second goal was just a case of “miscommunication.”
“I think we played a great 60 [minutes],” Hart said. “It just comes down to goaltending. I have to be better. I have to make a few more saves, make some better plays. Learn from it, move on and I will be better.”
The Flyers outshot the Devils, 31-18, and really didn’t allow a lot of great scoring chances. But New Jersey made the most of what it got, including the go-ahead goal.
“We need to communicate better with each other,” Hart said of the mixup with Seeler. “We’ll talk it out and go over some stuff in practice.”
Like Hart, Seeler was not about to throw his teammate under the bus.
“Miscommunication,” he said, echoing Hart’s remarks. “I’ll have to take a peek at it [on tape] and go from there.”
The players were pretty much in agreement they outplayed the Devils but just committed a few crucial mistakes.
“I think we’ve had quite a few of those games where we played really well and there were just a couple shifts here and there that cost us,” Seeler said. “But I thought there were a lot of positives coming out of tonight.”
A visibly upset coach John Tortorella limited his post-game news conference to a tidy 49 seconds.
“I don’t think we had many lapses tonight,” he said.
Asked for possible reasons for what lapses there were, he responded, “I’ll leave that one alone. You’re asking really dumb questions. We played our ass off.”
Philadelphia surrendered the first goal of the game for the 19th time in 25 games, this one coming at 6:01 of the second period.
However, the Flyers responded on a power play and stayed even going into the second intermission.
The Devils broke the scoreless tie at 6:01 of the second period when Flyers defenseman Ivan Provorov turned the puck over behind his own net. That led to a goal by Fabian Zetterlund.
The Flyers got off to a good start in a scoreless first period. They made a concerted effort to close down the middle and somewhat neutralize Jersey’s speed.
As a result, the Devils were held to a season-low four shots for a period, while the Flyers amassed 12.