There were no shortage of coronaries to be handed out during this game as Flyers fans were treated with more heart attack inducing moments all the way up to the ultimate letdown in a 3-2 shoot out defeat to the host Winnipeg Jets tonight.
Even though the Jets drew first blood via big bodied Defenseman Dustin Byfuglien, the Flyers tied it not long afterward and then took the lead themselves thanks to answering goals by Scott Hartnell and Wayne Simmonds. Hartnell has been heating up as of late, but it wasn’t enough as the Jets kicked in the afterburners midway through the 2nd period and never really seemed to let up during the rest of regulation. Keeping the Flyers constantly on their heels, the Jets eventually forced the Flyers into committing a crucial penalty, something that commonly happens when a team finds itself going in reverse on the ice, and that penalty finally caught up with Philly when Dustin Byfuglien struck again, ripping home a bullet from the point past Steve Mason, who couldn’t see the shot well due to a wealth of traffic in front of him. The amount of tension watching this game up until that moment was nothing short of dramatic torture as the Jets continually blew up by the Flyers repeatedly and created some potentially scary moments for Mason, who was nothing short of spectacular throughout. I don’t know if playing so many games in such few days with the amount of travel involved, after all the Flyers looked severely tired during most of the third, but Simmonds said there are no excuses when asked that very same question after the game.
The OT period was a reversal of sorts, so there may be merit tom Simmonds’ refusal to admit fatigue. There, the Flyers seemed to dominate the Jets, but could not capitalize on a score and fatefully left the game up to the dreaded shoot out, an event that has not been very kind to Philadelphia over the years. Mason went down fighting as it took 10 attempts between the two clubs to determine the victor of the contest, with the Jets getting the second and winning shot on the next to last attempt of the game on Bryan Little’s slick move on Mason. Defenseman Kimmo Timonen had the final attempt to tie it, but isn’t exactly the dangling dynamo on ice out there.
All in all, this was a game that was more the Flyers clinging desperately to a win only to watch it slip away, and this felt more like an early season game where they did much of the same, falling flat and allowing the opposing club to dominate the ice for long swells at a time. We can’t blame Jet lag, but it sort of showed, and all that’s left to see now is if the club will exorcise the early season demons and bounce back from this. They’ll get their chance when they host Jersey boy Bobby Ryan and the Ottawa Senators on Tuesday.
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