Game of posts

If this game had been played under the same rules the 1979-80 Philadelphia Flyers had been governed by during their 35-game unbeaten streak, this version of the orange and black would still be rolling along, unbeaten in nine straight.

But, there’s overtime now, and when that ends, there’s a shootout.

We got all the way to the skills competition in this one, and even thought the Flyers had won the breakaway showdown until replay showed Adrian Kempe’s attempt actually went in and out, rather than off the underside of the crossbar, to extend the game. Tyler Toffoli ended it in round six, beating Anthony Stolarz for the win.

Stolie was solid in his first start since his 38-save shutout on January 29th, stopping 37 of 39 Los Angeles Kings shots on goal, as well as three of six in the shootout, with the help of a few posts along the way.

The Flyers were sloppy most of the night and just really never established themselves. But, to their credit, showed enough fight in coming back to tie the game with 18 seconds left when Claude Giroux made a hell of a feed, walking the puck in from the right point off a pass from Shayne Gostisbehere, then making a pass from the top of the right wing circle, finding Jakub Voracek in the left wing faceoff dot, and Jake snaked the puck over Jonathan Quick’s blocker to send the contest to three-on-three overtime.

Not the greatest game, but an exciting finish and a back-and-forth OT, mixed with another encouraging start for Stoltender the Goaltender, made it at least worth watching.

For more on this game, and what lies ahead with eight games remaining before February 25th’s trade deadline, listen to the POSTgame show (there were a lot of pucks off posts in this one).