In the first meeting between the Metropolitan Division rivals, the Philadelphia Flyers stemmed a losing trend from last season with a 3-2 shootout win over the New York Rangers on Saturday night at Wells Fargo Center. Raffl collided with Rangers forward Jarret Stoll during the second period and took an “accidental” elbow to the face, according to Tim Panaccio of CSN Philly.
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Teammates were anxious. Raffl was escorted down the hallway tunnel to the Flyers’ dressing room by trainer Jim McCrossin when someone offered him a wheelchair.
The Flyers host Buffalo on Tuesday. Hextall says Raffl didn’t go to the hospital and is doing better. It’s not known if he’ll miss any games. “The whole team was pretty anxious, but he looks good right now”.
However, he does feel there is an advantage to the penalty killing team on disadvantages that happen very early in the first period.
“I said yeah, and I took two steps, and it kinda came back, dizzy again and said, ‘OK, I’ll take it, ‘” Raffl laughed.
If there’s one player on the Flyers who can make light of a scary situation, it has to be Michael Raffl.
Centers Sam Gagner and Claude Giroux scored in the shootout, with Giroux providing the decisive goal to give the Flyers (4-2-1) their fourth win in the last five games.
“We took a minute or two, just the bench to get everybody refocused”, Flyers coach Dave Hakstol said.
“Michael is a amusing guy and sometimes he does something amusing”, Giroux said.
With the score tied at 1 after one period, Marc Staal slowed Brayden Schenn on a rush down the left boards, but his attempted clear bounced back.
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“Every night there are two points available”, Hakstol said. The important thing, and I don’t know where we were past year right now, but now we’re 4-2-1. He stoned Pierre-Edouard Bellemare in the slot a few minutes later and held off Philadelphia during a power-play opportunity that followed. He had to be helped to the Flyers’ dressing room and did not return with what the Flyers are calling an “upper-body injury”. He’s considered day-to-day. Rangers LW Viktor Stalberg also left the game with an upper-body injury and is day to day…. But Derick Brassard’s slap shot from the blue line tied it at 2 at 4:48 and gave the Rangers a power-play goal in their third straight game. “I thought there would be something (disciplinary), but that’s not my job”. The puck skidded into the corner, but Nash picked up his first of the season and 700th career point regardless. Rangers coach Alain Vigneault used a challenge, but the league, after a video review, supported the call, explaining that Stoll made “incidental contact” with Mason before the puck crossed the goal line.
