There’s no better way to bring back hockey than with a battle of Pennslyvania win by the Flyers. In case you missed yesterday’s exhibition game against the Pittsburgh Penguins, here’s the breakdown:

The Pens netted the first tally of the game with a goal from Conor Sheary. His shot beat goaltender Carter Hart, who played in net for periods 1 and 2. 

The Flyers answered with a lucky goal from Sean Couturier to tie the game at one. 

COOTS! There it is.

(It feels so good to tweet that after a goal again.) pic.twitter.com/kMGcDZ87xL

— Philadelphia Flyers (@NHLFlyers) July 28, 2020

Kevin Hayes put the Flyers ahead with just 30 seconds left in the first period

The Best One with a backhand beaut. pic.twitter.com/qAovTtjW39

— Philadelphia Flyers (@NHLFlyers) July 28, 2020

The second period yielded no goals for either team, but at the end of the third Jason Zucker scored off a rebound on Flyers goaltender Brian Elliott to tie the game at two. 

The game went into 3 on 3 overtime and the Flyers won after a beautiful stretch pass from Travis Konecny allowed Scott Laughton to score the winning goal. 

TK to Laughts for the W. pic.twitter.com/gMfZoWSkPc

— Philadelphia Flyers (@NHLFlyers) July 28, 2020

The Flyers penalty kill was strong the entire game, leaving the Penguins 0/3 on their opportunities. 

Things to note:

Healthy Teams

The Flyers, like most teams, benefited from the coronavirus pause in terms of injured players. Philippe Myers’ knee injury, along with James van Riemsdyk’s hand injury both healed over the past four months. Shayne Gostisbehere also made a full recovery from his knee surgery. Myers and JVR have been key components to this flyers team all season and their return will surely come as a relief. Gostisbehere came off a less than stellar regular season with the Flyers (with only 12 pts and a +/- of -4), but his game since returning after surgery has seemly improved and he could prove to be a key part of the 2020 playoff push. While it’s great to have all three of these players back into the lineup, every team that is participating in the playoffs will also be returning with much stronger and healthier lineups than they had at the time of the pause. This is a dynamic that we don’t normally see in the Stanley Cup playoffs, healthy team vs healthy team. This new component will certainly serve to make the games even more interesting for the hockey staved fans who are watching.  

New faces

The Flyers had one defenseman play in last night’s game that many would not expect to see with the playoffs looming around the corner: 20-year-old Egor Zamula. Zamula recently came off an incredible (yet incredibly short) season with the WHL’s Calgary Hitmen. While the 6 foot 4 Russian born defenseman only played in 28 games, he put up 28 pts and had a plus-19 rating. His season was cut short due to back problems that required surgery. While his presence in last night’s game may have been surprising to some, he did not look out of place playing with some of the NHL’s biggest names. While I’m excited to see more from Zamula and what he can bring to this Flyers team in the future, I’m hoping to see more of the veteran defencemen Justin Braun and Robert Hagg as the bigger games get closer. 

After last night’s performance, it’s clear that this Flyers team is just what it was when the season paused, a winning team with a solid chance to make a deep playoff run this year.