POSTGAME 5: Flyers Rout Habs, 6-3

The Philadelphia Flyers defeated the Montreal Canadiens, 6-3, at the Bell Centre on Thursday evening. The Flyers scored two goals in each period. It was the Flyers' first six-goal output since Dec. 14.

The victory ended a six-game losing streak for the Flyers. The Canadiens have lost seven in a row. The Flyers went 1-0-2 in the season series against Montreal.
James van Riemsdyk (22nd goal of the season) and Ivan Provorov (9th) built a 2-0 lead for the Flyers. Directly off an obvious hand pass by Brendan Gallagher, Mke Hoffman (12th) put the puck in the net and the goal was somehow allowed to stand.
In the second period, after Jake Evans (12th) briefly tied the game at 2-2, Oskar Lindblom (12th) restored a lead for the Flyers. Travis Konecny (15th) then made it a 4-2 lead.
Morgan Frost (4th) added some extra insurance in the latter portion of the third period, before van Riemsdyk's second goal of the game (22nd overall) made it 6-2. Cole Caufield (19th) cut the final deficit to three goals.
Martin Jones earned the win in net. He stopped 30 of 33 shots. For Montreal, Carey Price struggled with tracking and handling the puck. He made 28 saves on 34 shots.
The Flyes went 0-for-3 on the power play. The Canadiens went 0-for-1.
Defenseman Linus Högberg made his NHL debut in this game. He recorded his first assist, blocked three shots and skated 17:25 across 25 shifts. Bobby Brink notched a pair of assists while Ronnie Attard and Noah Cates chipped in one helper apiece.
TURNING POINT
Lindblom's goal, scored 1:19 after Evans tied the score at 2-2. Price didn't play it well and it turned out to be a huge play for the Flyers. Konecny's subsequent goal rebuilt a two-goal edge for Philadelphia.
MELTZER'S TAKE
1) At 1:25 of the first period, Price fought off a right circle shot from Ivan Provorov. Price made a shoulder save in the rising shot from the dot. On the next shift, James van Riemsdyk had a great scoring chance in the slot off a centering feed from behind the net.
Morgan Frost blocked a Tyler Pitlick shot at 2: 23. On Frost's next shift, Christian Dvorak blocked a Frost shot attempt.
A Ronnie Attard turnover and a Rafael Henry-Pinard deflection led to Montreal's first extended puck possession and the first test for Jones.
At 7:12, Attard iced the puck in seeking a stretch pass to Owen Tippett. Frost won the ensuing left circle defensive faceoff and the Flyers exited the defensive zone.
The Flyers took a 1-0 lead at 7:43. Behind the Montreal net, Price turned the puck over to van Riemsdyk. Brink got a puck touch and, from behind the goal line, JVR banked a shot into the net.

The Canadiens put on a heavy push after the van Riemsdyk goal including a 2-on-1 that missed connections and a Jeff Petry look on the pinch.
At 9:49, Owen Tipppet beat Kale Clague off the rush, drawing a hooking penalty. Frost was unable to finish a point blank chance on the delayed call (he hurriedly missed the net with the shot) but the Flyers went to the power play. The teams traded off several odd-man rush chances apiece, including two for Rem Pitlick shorthanded, but neither club scored. The Flyers, in fact, did not put any on net.
Cole Caufield had an open look from the left slot. Jones made the save. Tippett, on his next shift, took two pucks away from Habs players and had scoring chances on counter rushes. The first one created a fat rebound that bounced over Frost's stick.
The Flyers extended the lead to 2-0 at 14:29 off a faceoff win by Thompson. Brink passed to Provorov, who wristed a shot home past Price moving in and shooting from the left dot. The assists went to Brink (2nd of the period) and Thompson.

A blatant hand-pass by Brendan Gallagher at 15:31 should have canceled out a goal Mike Hoffman in a scramble around the Flyers net. There was no review of the play, and it stood. Gallagher and Dvorak were credited with assists as the Canadiens cut the gap to 2-1.
The Canadiens applied heavy pressure after the gifted goal. With 58.1 seconds remaining, Travis Sanheim was called for an elbowing minor. In the waning seconds of the period, the Canadiens hit the crossbar and post. Montreal took 1:02 of carry-over power play time into the second period.
2) The first period was wide open and sloppy as could be. There easily could have seen several other goals scored beyond the JVR self-rebound bank shot and the controversial Hoffman goal. Shots on goal were 9-7 Montreal. Shot attempts were 23-16 Canadiens. Scoring chances were 14-6 Montreal with a 7-5 high-danger edge for the Canadiens.
3) The Flyers killed off the remaining time on the Sanheim penalty. Chris Wideman blasted an unscreened shot on net in the final second.
The Flyers went to the power play at 1:36 as Petry interfered with Konecny by knocking him down well after the Flyers forward passed the puck and skated toward the net. The Canadiens had a 2-on-1 shorthanded and then a Pitlick shot. With the first unit out, Konecny was denied in close and then blocked twice.
Oskar Lindblom stole the puck near the offensive blueline. The puck hopped on him on what looked to be a developing chance.
Montreal tied the game at 5:28, a center point shot by Petry was deflected into the net by Evans to tie the game at 2-2 after Egor Zamula failed to contain the forward. Pitlick drew the secondary assist.
Konecny and Ryan Poehling traded off scoring chances at either end of the ice on the same shift. The Flyers then grabbed a 3-2 lead at 6:49 as Lindblom used Zack MacEwen and a defender as a partial screen and the puck found the short side. MacEwen, who dropped the puck to Lindblom, got the primary helper and Högberg was credited with the secondary assist.

At 9:26, a nifty stickhandling sequence by Frost resulted in a rising wrist shot from the bottom of the left circle. Price fought it off over the glass. On the next shift, Brink created yet another scoring chance off the rush at 10:14.
Konecny took an outlet pass from Attard, gained the offensive zone with a wide open lane and snapped a wicked shot from the left hash marks home past Price for a 4-2 Flyers lead. The assists went to Attard and Provorov at 13:02.

With 6:19 left, Anderson split the defense and was denied on an excellent save by Jones. As the clock ticked down to 4:47, Konecny hammered a shot on net off a feed from Hayes.
With the Farabee line caught on a long shift, Anderson had an uncontested shot from the right slot. The Flyers were fortunate that it didn't end up in the net.
At 18:56, Jones juggled a Gallagher shot but was able to hold on. After the stoppage, Konecny and Gallagher trade off slashed and both received minors to set up 4-on-4 play for two minutes. Fifty-six seconds remained at the buzzer as David Savard fired a shot on net.
4) The middle frame was another wide-open 20 minutes with very loose coverage by both clubs. Shots on goal were 18-17 Flyers. Shot attempts were 23-15 Flyers. Scoring chances were 15-14 Montreal, with high-danger chances 7-6 for Montreal.
5) Hayes opened the third period with a strong 4-on-4 shift, concluding with a deflection of a Sanheim shot on net.
Suzuki bobbed and weaved to enter the offensive zone on a Montreal breakout. Zamula finally broke the play up and the puck went to Jones for a stoppage at 2:36.
Petry swooped around behind the Flyers net, emerged at the bottom of the bottom of the left circle and fired a wrist shot over the net at 5:30.
Noah Cates and Tippet combined for a good play on the forecheck in the offensive end, resulting in Cates' first shot on goal of the game. After a Sanheim shot at the point was blocked, Tippett hustled on the backcheck. Through 10:05 of the third period, shots were 4-3 Flyers.
At 11:35, Pitlick tripped up Frost in the neutral zone. The Flyers went on their third power play. On a line change, a Tippett-Konecny 2-on-1 missed connections. With 25 seconds left on the power play, Dvorak hit the post from the low slot off a Petry pass.
Frost started and finished the sequence that resulted in Philly's fifth goal. A lovely saucer pass from Cates with Frost going to the net resulted in Frost building a three-goal lead. Tippett got his 10th assist of the season (2nd as a Flyer) as all three players got a point on the play at 15:36. At 16:56, took the puck away from a Hab and scored his second goal of the game.
At 17:33, Jones was caught unprepared for a side-angle shot from Caufield and the puck found the net. The assists went to Wideman and Suzuki.
Third period shots were 8-7 Flyers. Apart from the late garbage-time goals, it was a more structured period than the opening 40 minutes.