Minnesota’s penalty kill was 0-for-2 against Dallas.
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At this point, with the Flyers so far to the other end of the special teams spectrum – they’ve yet to score on any of their power plays in the series and have beaten Caps netminder Braden Holtby all of two times despite firing off 90-plus shots – and turning to Michal Neuvirth for some kind of game four spark, there seems little hope of Philly turning the series around.
But the Flyers kept their feet moving in this game, played strong positional hockey and found a winning formula. Especially after the lackluster 0 for 5 showing his team’s power-play produced in Game 3.
The Flyers improved to 3-6 in Game 4s after losing the first three games of a best-of-seven series and averted what would have been their seventh four-game sweep all-time.
That got the Flyers to Game 5, which will be Friday night at the Verizon Center in Washington. The Capitals have never held a 3-0 series lead, they now have a chance to pick up the team’s first playoff sweep as well.
Video of the Scott Laughton injury can be seen below, but be warned that it may be disturbing for some viewers. He was upended by Washington’s John Carlson near the Caps’ goal and crashed violently into the end boards at 16:11 of the first period, then lay motionless for several minutes.
Get all of Alex Prewitt’s columns as soon as they’re published. After the game, Dave Hakstol didn’t have any updates on Laughton’s condition. With head coach giving normal starter Steve Mason some rest after a rough couple of games, Neuvirth was a big reason for Philadelphia’s 2-1 victory over the Capitals.
The Capitals responded to the Flyers’ physical play by scoring goal after goal.
“It was huge, ” Simmonds said.
Neuvirth coolly pushed aside the Capitals – and their brooms – to give the Flyers a 2-1 win and at least two more days of life to their season. “We’ve got a lot of bounces and they weren’t really going our way”. Today we talked about it and we have a great group in here. I wish him the best. No flying wristbands like in Game 3, though given how he’d been playing, he might have stopped them, too. “I believe in myself and I like it”.
The lack of Capital power plays certainly helped the cause. “That was our goal”. And we didn’t take any stupid penalties. “I was really happy with the effort tonight”. The Flyers eventually brought out the stretcher and wheeled him off the ice late in the first period.
The offside coaches challenges have stolen the show this postseason, but their rarer cousin – the goaltender interference challenge – made an appearance in Brooklyn on Wednesday.
In the second period, the defense contributed to the offense again.
In the second period, the play slowed down a bit until Andrew MacDonald sent a shot in from the blue line which managed to make its way past Holtby.
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Mason allowed 12 goals in three games and sports a 4.09 goals-against average and a. 852 save percentage this post-season.
