Philly Sports Today

After two periods, the Flyers trailed 5-1 and looked like they were dead in the water. Then, Scott Hartnell scored two goals early in the third period to complete a hat trick and you just felt that something special was going to happen. By the time the game was over, the Flyers had transformed a surefire loss into a 6-5 shootout win.

Eric Staal scored the opening goal of the game a little over a minute into the first period to give the Carolina Hurricanes a 1-0 lead. The Canes took their one goal lead into the second period and proceeded just explode. Matt Cullen extended Carolina’s lead to 2-0 with a goal early in the period. A few minutes later, Scott Hartnell’s power play goal sliced Philly’s deficit to 2-1. However, a few seconds later, Flyer-killer Sergei Samsonov scored his third goal of the year against Philly to put Carolina back up by two goals. Former Flyer Joni Pitkanen scored on the power play a few minutes later and Staal found the net on the power play as well for his second goal of the night a little bit after that as Carolina took a 5-1 lead into the third period. That’s when things got interesting.

Hartnell scored a shorthanded goal early in the third to cut the deficit to 5-2 and a few minutes later, he found the net again to make it 5-3 Carolina. With less than five minutes remaining, Scottie Upshall pulled the Flyers to within one and Simon Gagne completed the comeback with his goal with less than two minutes left in regulation that tied the game at 5-5. Neither team could find the net during the overtime, but the Flyers stepped up during the shootout for the first time all season. Gagne scored the first goal and Tuomo Ruutu had his shot saved. Then Mike Richards scored Philly’s second shootout goal and former Flyer Rod Brind’Amour had his shot saved as the Flyers pulled out a miraculous 6-5 win.

Antero Niittymaki made 26 saves while his Carolina counterpart Michael Leighton stopped 32 shots.

With the win, the Flyers matched their largest comeback since February 23, 1988 when they erased a 5-1 deficit against Detroit on their way to an 11-6 win. Philly was also 0-2 in shootouts this year, but this win is only their ninth win overall in shootouts. The Flyers completed their season series with the Hurricanes in a 16-day span. Philly compiled a record of 3-1-1 against Carolina. That’s a solid 7 points in the standing for the Flyers just against the Canes.

The Flyers look to move into sole possession of second place in the Atlantic Division tomorrow afternoon when they host the Pittsburgh Penguins. The Pens came out on top the last time these two teams met.

Let’s Go Flyers!

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