Highlights Beyond Highlights- Jan. 18 vs. Stars

There are two things to appreciate about the Sean Walker goal that started the scoring.  The first is the feed from Morgan Frost. Frost is in motion as he receives a pass from Joel Farabee and one-touches it on the backhand through his own legs to Walker, who recognizes that the Stars have overloaded the near side. 

The second is the actual shot from Walker. Jake Oettinger is 6-6 and 224 lbs; he takes up the vast majority of a regulation hockey net, and even more so when he comes out as far as he does to cut down the angle once Walker has the puck. Walker could not have had much more than a puck-sized sliver to shoot at, but he placed it perfectly off the post and in.

As pretty as the Frost feed was, there was another scoring opportunity driven by Owen Tippett and Travis Konecny that would have rivaled it if it had gone in.  It’s a 2-on-2 that turns into a 2-on-3, but that didn’t matter a lick to the forwards. Tippett drops the puck to Konecny and then slips between the two defenders in front of him, and Konecny then returns it with perhaps the sauce pass of the year – a backhander that eludes the defender and lands right on Tippett’s stick. Unfortunately it went high, but these two are going to want to keep that up.

Just looking a little deeper at Scott Laughton’s penalty shot goal, it’s another situation where Jake Oettinger is usually pretty tough to beat but the Flyers figured it out. Oettinger has only given up 14 goals in 50 career shootout attempts (essentially what a penalty shot is), so it was a bit surprising to see Laughton make two moves that sent Oettinger flopping onto his stomach.

Now go watch Tippett’s second goal a few more times. Nothing more to say about that one.