Philadelphia Pennsylvania is home to the Liberty Bell, famous cheesesteaks, and fictional boxer Rocky Balboa. It is also home to the Philadelphia Flyers who the Vancouver Canucks were facing on their second game of the season and second game of a six-game road trip.
Like a fight from a Rocky movie, the game was quite entertaining.
The Canucks got off to a slow start and were outshot 15-4 in the first. The Flyers were in control and the Canucks couldn’t get anything going. They were turning the puck over and spending a lot of time in their own zone. Joel Farabee opened the scoring for Flyers.
The Canucks were a lot better than in the second period. This time they were spending more time in the Flyers down and created a lot of scoring chances on Carter Hart. Vasily Podkolzin scored his first NHL goal, which was a filthy snipe.
Vasili Podkolzin absolutely rips it for his first career NHL goal #Canucks pic.twitter.com/eG0E5Avhzk
— Harman Dayal (@harmandayal2) October 16, 2021
That was followed by power play goals from Elias Pettersson and Alex Chiasson. Cam Atkinson got one back for Philadelphia before J.T. Miller capitalized.
The Canucks could thank Carter Hart because he gave up a couple of strange goals.
Vancouver continued their strong play in the third period but it dwindled as the period went on. The Canucks played conservative in the closing stages of the third.
The Flyers eventually tied the game up with goals from Travis Konecny and Claude Giroux a minute and five seconds apart. However, those goals didn’t come without controversy.
The Flyers were given a power play when Oliver Ekman-Larsson got sent to the box for high sticking Konecny. He did get his stick up high but there was no contact. Konecny was hit by the puck. Ekman-Larsson clearly wasn’t happy with the call.
Can’t tell if OEL isn’t happy with the call or if he just saw a haunted creature emerge from the depths of the penalty box pic.twitter.com/sIWJaFe3Y9
— Mr Booth (@MrBooth07) October 16, 2021
That wasn’t the only head-scratcher. Bo Horvat tried to seal the game by shooting for the empty net. Matthew Highmore tried to win the race and it looked like he did but the linesmen decided to call icing.
Pettersson had two great chances to win it in overtime including a breakaway chance that was stopped by Carter Hart.
The game went to a shootout. Thatcher Demko stopped both Flyers attempts and Pettersson and Miller scored on both their attempts.
Without further ado, here are three takeaways from the Canucks 5-4 shootout win in Philadelphia.