The Philadelphia Flyers lost to the Vancouver Canucks, 3-0, on Saturday in the 2024-25 season home opener at Wells Fargo Center. Kevin Lankinen recorded a 26-save shutout for the Canucks.
Samuel Ersson (29 saves on 32 shots overall) kept the Flyers in the game early, stopping 14 of 15 shots in the first period. He had no chance on the lone Vancouver goal.
The Canucks grabbed a 1-0 lead at 16:09 of the first period as Conor Garland won a battle down low and centered the puck in front. After a quick pass from Elias Pettersson to Nils Hoglander (5th goal of the season) the Canucks had a slam dunk.
The Flyers' energy picked up a little bit early in the second period. However, their timing and attention to detail was still a bit off. Through two periods, the Canucks held a 3-0 lead at 28-19 edge in shots on goal.
Vancouver took a 2-0 lead at 8:40 as Brock Boeser (3rd) tucked the puck home in on a Flyers coverage breakdown. Tyler Myers and Jake DeBrusk got the assists.
The Canucks made it 3-0 at 9:30 of the second period as Teddy Blueger won an offensive right circle draw to Kiefer Sherwood. Sherwood snapped a shot past Ersson.
The third period was scoreless.
The Flyers were 0-for-3 on the power play. They went 2-for-2 on the penalty kill.
FLYERS STARTING LINEUP
74 Owen Tippett - 48 Morgan Frost - 39 Matvei Michkov
86 Joel Farabee - 21 Scott Laughton - 11 Travis Konecny
71 Tyson Foerster - 17 Jett Luchanko - 10 Bobby Brink
14 Sean Couturier- 25 Ryan Poehling - 19 Garnet Hathaway
8 Cam York - 6 Travis Sanheim
77 Erik Johnson - 9 Jamie Drysdale
5 Egor Zamula - 55 Rasmus Ristolainen
82 Ivan Fedotov
[33 Samuel Ersson]
PP1: Drysdale, Tippett, Frost, Konecny, Michkov
PP2: Zamula, Foerster, Luchanko, Farabee, Brink
Scratches: 27 Noah Cates (healthy), 44 Nicolas Deslauriers (healthy), 36 Emil Andrae (healthy), 24 Nick Seeler (IR, knee).
TURNING POINT
Already leading 1-0 as regulation started to approach the midway mark, the Canucks scored two goals spaced 50 seconds apart. A manageable deficit for the Flyers became a deep hole.
POSTGAME 5
1) At 4:13 of the first period, Ersson stretched out and kept the right post covered on a scramble near the net. Vancouver had each of the game's first six shots on goal and 10 of the first 11 as the Flyers appeared heavy-legged from all-day travel on Friday. Vancouver had the first power play at 6:09 as Hathaway high sticked J.T. Miller.
2) The Flyers went on the power play at 12:50 as Poehling was tripped by Elias Pettersson. Tippett and Drysdale had good looks early on the man advantage. The Flyers got lucky as a near 2-on-1 went awry. Philly went back to the power play at 16:55.
3) Four minutes into the second period, the Flyers had two thirds of a tic-tac-toe play -- Frost to Michkov to Johnson -- the veteran defenseman could not quite finish the play. Later in the period, Frost and Konecny (semi-breakaway) had decent looks at the net. Second period shots on goal were 13-12 Vancouver.
4) The Flyers shook up their line combinations and defensive pairings over the latter part of the middle stanza: Tippett-Poehling-Michkov, Laughton-Frost, Konecny, Farabee-Luchanko-Brink, Foerster-Couturier-Hathaway up front, Zamula-Drysdale, Ristolainen-Johnson and the holdover York-Sanheim pair.
5) A carryover penalty on Hathaway at the end of the second period gave Vancouver its second power play of the game to start the third. The Flyers had a vital power play chance at 4:52. Konecny had a great chance from the slot but hammered the puck wide.
