Well, check the Flyers beating the Tampa Bay Lightning off your bingo card if you had it.

Carter Hart in his first 3 games:

vs NJ: .946 sv%

vs VAN: .933 sv%

vs TBL: .947%

Is that good?

Meh 1st period

The 1st period was pretty mellow between the two clubs. Tampa did get out to a 7-1 shot advantage but the Flyers weathered the initial storm well and started to round into their game towards the end.

Carter Hart stood tall throughout the stanza and was 10/10 on shot attempts.

Have to stay out of the box

Travis Konecny took a penalty, high-sticking defenseman Nick Perbix and the Lightning didn’t take long to capitalize.

As the Flyers were giving Kucherov much-needed attention on his half of the wall, they left a certain #91 open on his side and lets just say Stamkos made them pay.

Fast forward a minute or so and Zack MacEwen took another penalty against Ross Colton. Again, the Flyers left Stamkos open on his side of the wall and he quickly made it 2-0 Tampa.

The kids + Laughts

Other than the Stamkos daggers, considering the immense difference in skill level between two rosters, the Flyers were playing a good, structured game against Tampa.

With about 10 minutes left in the 2nd period, Morgan Frost took a puck in his own zone, calmed everything down around him and began taking the puck up the ice. Frost continued to work his way up ice, smoothly entered the zone and found a soft spot where Zamula was.

Zamula did what every coach tells you to do and threw the puck on net. Scott Laughton was there for the rebound and made no mistake. 2-1.

(That was Zamula’s 1st NHL point. Save that puck!)

PowerPlay looks good?

James van Riemsdyk tied the game up on the power play for his 1st of the season. Assists came from Hayes (4) and DeAngelo (3). The Flyers only had 2 power plays the entire game but man did they both look smooth. Constant puck movement, players moving spots and not just standing stationary and a pretty good power play QB can help.

Tony DeAngelo now has 1G-3A-4P in his first 3 games as a Flyer. He lead the team again in TOI with 24:54 minutes played. Not only has he really helped Provorov on that 1st pair but he’s already improving the PP.

Noah Cates

John Tortorella is on record for saying that he thought Noah Cates had the best camp of any Flyer on the team. He’s backed up those words with giving Noah a lot more responsibility with the position change to center to start the season.

Noah has played there before from his college day and the first 2 games it was obvious he was trying to do the little things that the center position demands from you. Tonight, we finally saw the offensive side breakthrough.

One thing about this Flyers team that is evident three games in his their sticks are constantly active, they support each other really well in all three zones and they’re always finishing their checks.

Cates continued that trend in what turned out to be the game-winning play.

Cates skated in hard on the forecheck, had an active stick out and stripped the defender in the slot. He then turned around the fired one past Vasilevskiy.

Beautiful.

This team knows they might not be the most skilled in the world but you have to give credit where credit is due. This team has been down 1-0 and 2-0(x2) and have come away with wins in all three games.

They work hard and that’s all we’ve really been asking for. One of the main takeaways going into this game was how do they look matched up against this team? Yeah, they might not win but will there be anything we can take away from the game in a positive light?

Instead, they didn’t let those two Stamkos goals get to them and put their heads down.

Little Takeaways

• Carter Hart has been absolutely fantastic to start this season. There’s no other words for it.
• Morgan Frost has had a good start to the year. 2G-1A-3P in first 3 games and tonight was easily his most active in terms of playmaking.
• Zack MacEwen did absolutely nothing for me this game except taking dumb penalties.
• Travis Konecny was once again engaged and doing all the little things well. He’s really been a treat to watch so far.
• Egor Zamula had his best game of his NHL career and added his 1st NHL point ontop of that.

Listen to The Liberty Yell

Mandatory Credit: Johnny Ulecka