Led by another stellar performance in the net by Samuel Ersson, the Philadelphia Flyers picked up consecutive wins for the first time in the 2024-25 season. Their 2-1 win over the St. Louis Blues is their third win in four games after starting 1-5-1. The Blues, who began their season 5-3-0, lost their third straight game in regulation.
After allowing 13 combined goals in losses to the Montreal Canadiens and Ottawa Senators, the Blues tightened things up defensively but couldn’t break through on Ersson, who nearly pitched his second consecutive shutout after blanking the Boston Bruins in a 2-0 win on Tuesday before the Blues tied the game halfway through the third. The Flyers, who took a 1-0 lead 11:12 into the game on Garnet Hathaway’s first goal of the season, responded in the waning minutes of the third when Bobby Brink finished a gorgeous give-and-go with Joel Farabee, which held up as the game-winner.
Game Recap
The Flyers started a bit sloppy, with a difficult first shot from the top line leading to a sharp reduction in Matvei Michkov’s ice time. The rookie turned a puck over on the wall and played just 2:53 in the first period, the lowest total of all Flyers forwards as Owen Tippett and Joel Farabee got some looks on the top line in Michkov’s place.
Philadelphia broke through on a gorgeous effort by Ryan Poehling. The speedy center gained the blue line with a burst and split Scott Perunovich and Matthew Kessel before slipping a backdoor pass for Garnet Hathaway to ram home. Nick Seeler, who earned an ovation from the crowd late in the period for a painful shot block to survive a dangerous d-zone sequence, picked up the secondary assist.
St. Louis threatened early in the second period, striking the crossbar twice and drawing a penalty within the frame’s first three minutes. Though the Blues couldn’t capitalize, they controlled the play heavily for most of the period before the Flyers started to settle in. Travis Konecny in particular found himself with a couple of dangerous opportunities, but Sam Ersson and Jordan Binnington continued to go save-for-save, with the score staying 1-0 after 40 minutes.
The Flyers played well out of the gates in the third period but conceded the equalizer halfway through. An angle shot from Philip Broberg caromed to Nathan Walker fresh off the bench, who fired the puck into an empty net for his first goal of the season and the first of the night for the Blues. It snapped a shutout streak of nearly 120 minutes for Ersson, which dated back to the third period of Saturday’s game against the Minnesota Wild. Broberg’s assist was his ninth point in 11 games this season, moving him into a tie among the league’s top 10 scoring defensemen.
But with just over three minutes to go, Jordan Kyrou opened the door with an unforced turnover just outside the Blues zone. The Philadelphia third line of Scott Laughton, Farabee and Brink turned into a slick counterattack, with Brink burying a Farabee feed to restore the Flyers’ lead with 3:01 remaining. A lockdown defensive effort from John Tortorella’s club got the Flyers over the finish line. Ersson’s 21st and final save may have been his best, as he stoned Brayden Schenn on a dangerous deflection with just 20 seconds to play.
Philadelphia finishes a run of four out of five home games on Saturday afternoon with a rematch against Boston after their aforementioned 2-0 win at TD Garden on Tuesday. The Blues have finished their four-game road trip and will return home to host their former coach, Craig Berube, and the Toronto Maple Leafs. It will be Berube’s first time in St. Louis since the Blues fired him last December after he led the team to its first Stanley Cup in 2019. The Blues’ only win of their trip came in Toronto last Thursday by a 5-1 final.
