There’s no place like a home-and-home, especially away from home on Hockey Day in America.
The Flyers swept their three-game regular-season series with the Red Wings thanks to a 3-1 win Sunday in Detroit.
It’s the Flyers' first season sweep of the Wings of two games or more since the 1982-83 season.
Oskar Lindblom scored twice in the victory.
Here are my observations on the game at Little Caesars Arena.
• I suspected this would be a game in which the Red Wings would come out hungrier than the Flyers and show some pride in their building and in front of their crowd. The Flyers allowed the Wings to dictate the pace with zero speed through the neutral zone, while being soft on pucks through the first 40 minutes, a near 180 from the game at the Wells Fargo Center.
• With goals in two of his last three games, Ivan Provorov has picked up his scoring touch recently with six goals this season. The Flyers' defenseman won’t come close to last year’s career-high 17 goals, but I still think he knocks on the door of double digits. He had eight shots in the game against Pittsburgh, scored a big goal against the Wild and has been more active offensively.
Provorov’s third-period goal was his fourth career game-winner and first of the 2018-19 season.
• In his NHL debut, Philippe Myers was terrific as the team’s seventh defenseman, taking the spot of right winger Justin Bailey. I’m not exactly sure what interim head coach Scott Gordon’s reasoning was for making the move. Perhaps it was a way to ease him in the lineup, but everything came instinctual to Myers in this game. His only mistake was an errant turnover in his own zone off a backhanded pass late in the second period.
• I think on a personal level Carter Hart wanted to prove he could produce a solid game in back-to-back situations. With the Phantoms, Hart was 0-3-0 with an .870 save percentage in the second game of back-to-back starts. His worst play wasn’t even a goal against, but rather a bad play with the puck that nearly led to a goal in the opening minute.
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Hart’s rebound control was outstanding and he was very reactive and on top of the puck for most of this game, finishing with 37 saves. One of his best performances of the season.
• He may not know whether he’ll even be with this team a week from now, but Wayne Simmonds' dedication to his teammates and the organization never ceases to impress. After Anthony Mantha crosschecked Claude Giroux in the back of the head Saturday in Philadelphia, it was Simmonds who dropped the gloves with Mantha in the opening minutes of this game (see story).
If Simmonds is traded, who’s the player on this team that stands up for teammates and makes the opposition accountable? It’s something general manager Chuck Fletcher has to consider.
• For the second straight game, the Flyers couldn’t take advantage of a cold goaltender coming off the bench. Jonathan Bernier was barely tested after Jimmy Howard was pulled once the Flyers scored their fifth goal Saturday. In this game, Bernier left after the first period with an upper-body injury after Dylan Larkin collided with him in the first period. In both instances, the Flyers failed to take advantage of a goaltender who had very little time to warm up.
• Andrew MacDonald takes a lot of criticism and rightfully so. MacDonald had a horrific turnover in the first period that led to a Mantha scoring chance, but bounced back with a huge block on Larkin that could have easily been a goal had he not blocked it. Overall, MacDonald had a game-high seven blocked shots against the Wings.
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