FINAL | Round 2 – Game 7 | Saturday, September 5, 2020

Islanders Win Series 4-3

Flyers Lineup

Claude Giroux – Sean Couturier – Jakub Voracek

Michael Raffl – Kevin Hayes – Travis Konecny

James van Riemsdyk – Scott Laughton – Tyler Pitlick

Oskar Lindblom – Nate Thompson – Nicolas Aube-Kubel

Ivan Provorov – Matt Niskanen

Travis Sanheim – Philippe Myers

Robert Hagg – Justin Braun

Carter Hart – Brian Elliott

Andy Welinski, Andy Andreoff, Morgan Frost, Egor Zamula, Mark Friedman, Connor Bunnaman, Alex Lyon, Kirill Ustimenko, Shayne Gostisbehere, Derek Grant

Joel Farabee (undisclosed – likely upper body)

Game Report

For the past two games, the Flyers found themselves on the brink of elimination and dug deep to extend their Eastern Conference Semifinals series against the Islanders. Tonight’s game was the end of the road: one team would advance, the other would go home.

To the relief of Flyers fans everywhere, Sean Couturier returned to the lineup after missing the last game due to injury. In his place, Derek Grant found himself as a healthy scratch.

Barry Trotz made an interesting decision: he benched Semyon Varlamov and placed Thomas Greiss in between the pipes. Bold decision? Perhaps. But Varlamov has had momentary struggles in this series, and the Flyers have not tested the Islanders backup goaltender very much.

It proved to be a wise call. The Flyers started the game quite well, with good pace, good skating, getting some good shots on Greiss, and controlling the play. But then Scott Mayfield opened the scoring for New York with a shot that found the net on Carter Hart‘s far side, and it seemed as if the air immediately went out of the Philadelphia bench.

Andy Greene then scored his second of the series when Derick Brassard flung a pass cross-crease that Hart had difficulty seeing through a screen of his own teammates and Greene buried the puck in a wide open net.

Philadelphia performed well on back-to-back penalty kills that spilled over into the second period, but that’s about the only positive you could really muster out of their play. Defensively, they struggled quite noticeably, zone exits were atrocious, leading to turnovers in the neutral zone. Toward the end of the second period, Brock Nelson potted his seventh goal of the playoffs to give the Islanders a 3-0 lead.

The third period was, frankly, more of the same. Scott Laughton dropped the mitts with Jean-Gabriel Pageau and even that didn’t spark his team. The gas tank was on empty, and it showed. With Hart pulled early for an extra attacker, Anthony Beauvillier potted an empty-netter to drive the final nail home on the Flyers 2019-20 season.

In the post-game press conference, Alain Vigneault was visibly let down and disappointed. It was clear that he took the elimination to heart and opted to pass on many questions put to him by the media, saying that he needs time to process and reflect. He also mentioned his disappointment with the team’s performance in tonight’s game, once that first goal against went in the net.

To his credit, Barry Trotz began his post-game availability by commending Oskar Lindblom on his courageous battle against cancer and return to play.

The Flyers will likely have one last media availability on Sunday before heading home. But there are bright spots on the horizon: winners of the Selke Trophy and Jack Adams Award are due to be announced this week, and the future looks bright for the Philadelphia Flyers in a new season that will be here before you blink an eye.

Plus / Minus

▲  Ivan Provorov

▼  Travis Sanheim, Carter Hart