The Flyers pulled out a rare-as-of-late victory in TD Garden thanks to Tyson Foerster’s second period goal, Sam Ersson’s 24-save shutout, and the moral support of the Flyers’ mothers.
It’s the first regulation win for the Flyers in Boston in 13 years (since October 6, 2011), a stretch of time that has seen sustained success for the Bruins—a run of success that could possibly be coming to an end this season. Boston drops to 4-5-1 and their struggles are likely best summed up by the Garden crowd’s reaction for most of the final minute-and-a-half: continuous, audible booing.
The real story for the Flyers was Sam Ersson. While there wasn’t necessarily a highlight save amongst his 24 (and there was a close call on a lackadaisical play with the puck at his feet on the Flyers power play in the third), Ersson still recorded his sixth career shutout in a game where a single mistake would’ve changed the outcome.
The Flyers will be back in action on Halloween, hosting the Blues in Philadelphia to try to build their first win streak of the season.
The basics
Second period: 5:32 — Tyson Foerster (Morgan Frost, Emil Andrae)
Third period: 19:36 — Joel Farabee (empty net, unassisted)
Some takeaways
Flyers PK stands strong
The Flyers were doing their best to reverse their trend of slow starts with some sustained play and nice opportunities in the opening minutes before a Scott Laughton cross-check put them down a man and a takedown of a wide open David Pastrnak by Travis Sanheim down another just a brief moment later. But Sam Ersson and the Flyers penalty kill—notably Nick Seeler and Rasmus Ristolainen—held their ground for over 90 seconds and set the team up to evenly trade unsuccessful chances for the rest of the first period.
The Flyers would kill off an additional three minor penalties in the second and third periods.
Emil Andrae’s first career point
The 22-year-old played a solid 17 minutes in his season debut on Sunday against the Canadiens. Back in the lineup tonight, he recorded his first career point—an assist on Tyson Foerster’s wrist-shot goal midway through the second period. Foerster, who hadn’t scored since the season opener, received a nice pass in the slot from Andrae off the wall and beat Korpisalo for the game’s opening goal. Foerster spoke during the intermission, saying he’s hoping to get more and more shots on goal moving forward.
Michk-off?
It seemed a relatively off night for the 19-year-old, who has been a very sure-handed presence with the puck through his first handful of NHL games. Tonight he went unnoticed in the Flyers offensive third of the ice (another lacrosse attempt notwithstanding) and there were a few key sloppy plays that stood out on the other two thirds of the ice—a risky cross-slot breakout pass attempt that was picked off and resulted in sustained Bruin pressure, a fail to play the puck cleanly and clear with Jamie Drysdale writhing on the ground in front of the net. Certainly nothing to be concerned about and nothing that actively resulted in harm for the Flyers, but perhaps notable considering how much he’s stood out up to this point. He’s now strung together the first consecutive scoreless games of his career.
Goaltending battle
There was just one goal scored on a goaltender tonight, giving us a baseball score on a World Series night. Joonas Korpisalo played great for the Bruins, coming up big a few times, including on a Flyers two-on-one built off a stretch pass to Scott Laughton streaking out of the penalty box. But Korpisalo came up short to Ersson, who turned away everything he faced, and the Flyers defense, who only allowed 24 of the Bruins’ 72 shot attempts to get through to their goaltender. The game’s only other goal was scored in the waning moments of the third period as Joel Farabee scooped a loose puck and the blue line and floated it into the Korpisalo-less Bruins net to cap off the win for the Flyers.
