Nov 27, 2024; Nashville, Tennessee, USA; Philadelphia Flyers center Sean Couturier (14) celebrates after his goal defenseman Rasmus Ristolainen (55) against the Nashville Predators during the the overtime period at Bridgestone Arena. Mandatory Credit: Steve Roberts-Imagn Images While the Philadelphia Flyers and New York Rangers both acknowledged that they didn’t play their best the last time out, the difference is the former emerged with a victory.
Philadelphia hopes to ride the momentum from an exciting win when it hosts New York in a Black Friday matinee.
The Flyers were outplayed by the Nashville Predators for most of Wednesday’s contest before Morgan Frost scored with 12 seconds left to force overtime. Sean Couturier’s deflection found the back of the net in the extra session, securing one of the Flyers’ more improbable wins in recent memory.
“There were a lot of minutes that it just was not good for us tonight,” Flyers coach John Tortorella said. “I readily admit that. But I just like the way they just stayed with it and tried to plug along.”
Philadelphia has won two of its last three games (2-0-1) with the only defeat in that stretch coming Monday. That night, the Flyers held 3-0 and 4-3 leads versus the Vegas Golden Knights before suffering a bitter defeat in a shootout.
“Just staying with it, staying patient,” Flyers defenseman Travis Sanheim said Wednesday. “It wasn’t our best effort. Find a way to stay in the game and get one late and end up probably stealing two points. But you look at (Monday) night, probably a game that we should’ve had and end up losing it. That’s the way hockey is sometimes. We’ll take the two points and move on.”
The Rangers wish they could have escaped with two points Wednesday against the Carolina Hurricanes. They led 3-2 midway through the third period before allowing two goals in 2:07 to fall behind in an eventual 4-3 defeat — the team’s fourth straight setback.
“The effort was good, (but) nobody feels good,” New York coach Peter Laviolette said. “We ended up losing a hockey game we were winning going into the third period.”
Brett Berard scored his first NHL goal for the Rangers, while Jonny Brodzinski and Adam Edstrom also tallied. The team has been outscored 18-9 during its current skid.
“We did enough to put ourselves in position to win tonight. Sometimes it just doesn’t work out,” New York forward Reilly Smith said.
Friday’s matchup will pit one of the league’s premier goalies — the Rangers’ Ilya Shesterkin — against one of the Flyers’ backup netminders, unless Philadelphia starter Samuel Ersson is ready to return from a lower-body injury. There has not been a recent update on Ersson (who has not played since Nov. 11), while Ivan Fedotov and Aleksei Kolosov have essentially split time in the Philadelphia net.
Regardless of Friday’s starter, New York certainly will look to come out aggressively against a team it has dominated in recent years. Over the previous three seasons, the Rangers went 9-1-1 against the Flyers.
This is their first meeting this season.
“We’re going through a little bit of adversity as a group,” Rangers captain Jacob Trouba said. “Everybody knows it’s probably a better effort for us, but there aren’t really any moral victories at this level. So keep grinding, keep putting the work in and turn this thing around as a group.”
–Field Level Media
