FINAL | Round 1 – Game 1 | Wednesday, August 12, 2020

Philadelphia Leads Series 1-0

Flyers Lineup

Claude Giroux – Sean Couturier – Joel Farabee

Scott Laughton – Kevin Hayes – Travis Konecny

Jakub Voracek – Derek Grant – Nicolas Aube-Kubel

James van Riemsdyk – Nate Thompson – Tyler Pitlick

Ivan Provorov – Matt Niskanen

Travis Sanheim – Philippe Myers

Shayne Gostisbehere – Justin Braun

Carter Hart – Brian Elliott

Andy Welinski, Andy Andreoff, Morgan Frost, Robert Hagg, Egor Zamula, Mark Friedman, Connor Bunnaman, Alex Lyon, Kirill Ustimenko

Michael Raffl (lower body), Oskar Lindblom

Game Report

The Flyers cruised through the exhibition game and round robin games with an undefeated 4-0 record. The Canadiens stunned the hockey world with their upset victory over the Penguins in their qualifying round series. So what could you expect when the top seed in the East took on the bottom seed in the first of a best-of-seven series? It seems that this summer it’s best to expect the unexpected.

For the opening 20 minutes of play, the game looked about as you’d think it would: Philadelphia vastly outshot Montreal, clogged the neutral zone, and pinned the Canadiens in their own zone. As a bonus, the Flyers finally snapped their 0-for-11 power play drought when Ivan Provorov fired a blast from the blue line on the man advantage and the puck was tipped by Paul Byron‘s stick into his own net.

Things got a little dicey toward the end of the period when Derek Grant drove hard to the net and Xavier Ouellet cross-checked him from behind, right into Carey Price. Grant clipped Price’s head as he careened into the net, for which Price took exception and had to restrain himself from coming to blows with Grant while he was down.

The second period, however, was a complete role reversal. This time it was the Flyers on their heels for the bulk of the frame, with the Habs forechecking, forcing turnovers, and getting plenty of shots on Carter Hart. To his credit, Hart was not shaken in net and denied a lot of dangerous shots.

Scott Laughton had a prime opportunity to play hero once again, when Price went down to make a save and Laughton, at point blank range from the slot, had a wide open net to shoot on. However, the Montreal goaltender made a highlight-reel save by getting just a piece of his stick blade on the puck as it sailed toward Nick Suzuki‘s head.

Then it was the Canadiens’ turn to wake up their power play when captain Shea Weber hammered home a second attempt while Hart was tangled up in the crease. Just 16 seconds later, however, Joel Farabee was practicing good net-front presence when Travis Sanheim fired a shot from the point which banked off of Price’s pads and Farabee was able to tap in the rebound.

The game seemed to even out a bit in the third period, with both teams keeping up a blistering pace and forechecking hard. Both goaltenders needed to be on their game, and they performed well. Montreal had a few chances to lock up the scoreboard again, but found iron more often then not. 

Philadelphia was fortunate to come out of this game with an early series lead, and they’ll now know that Montreal has the ability to keep up with the top team in the conference. Friday afternoon’s Game Two matchup should be another entertaining event.

Plus / Minus

▲  Carter Hart, Joel Farabee, Ivan Provorov

▼  Nate Thompson, Matt Niskanen