Quick one here tonight, because sometimes the Flyers play a hockey game in between the local soccer team choking away its first-ever chance at a championship in truly breathtaking fashion and the local baseball team playing in Game 6 of the World Series, and as such there’s only so much attention we have available to pay. But, on a night where the Flyers for the first time faced off against the guy who has a pretty solid case to be known as the second-best player in franchise history, Claude Giroux probably gelt right at home in this game, as he got to watch two things that probably felt very familiar to him:
- The Philadelphia Flyers were playing hockey.
- Claude Giroux had to watch as he did everything in his power to will his team to a victory, only to be let down by his teammates.
He just … probably was not used to those two things not meaning the same thing.
Some notes, then, on the Flyers’ 2-1 win in Ottawa that helped them partly salvage this three-game road trip with a win:
- Claude Giroux scoring a goal — his 300th of his career — on just his second shift of the game was thoroughly unshocking. Good for him.
- After that, though … not a bad game for the Flyers? A fairly even game until Ottawa turned up the pressure in the last 10 or so minutes of regulation in search of the tying goal, which they would never find.
- Even so, story of this one — as it has been in basically every Flyers win this season — is Carter Hart. 31 saves on 32 shots. One goal allowed on A Lot More Than That expected. He continues to more or less single-handedly keep this team afloat, even if tonight he got a bit of offensive support.
- A downright good showing from the penalty kill tonight, keeping Ottawa off of the scoreboard in five tries.
- More than one chippy moment between Giroux and his old teammates, including two with Kevin Hayes. Probably nothing, but, y’know … it’s not nothing./
That’s it for now. Back home against the Blues on Monday.
