Ersson big as Flyers snap skid; Tortorella benches a D-man, makes a few other calls originally appeared on NBC Sports Philadelphia
Monday afternoon brought craziness in Calgary for the Flyers.
It ended with John Tortorella’s team pulling out a tide-stemming 4-3 win over the Flames at Scotiabank Saddledome.
Wade Allison scored the game-winning goal with 8:27 minutes remaining in the third period. The Flyers — sans Travis Konecny — went into the final stanza holding a 3-1 lead but saw it evaporate as Calgary struck twice in the opening nine minutes.
Tortorella called a timeout after the Flames’ equalizer and it seemed to settle things down.
Konecny suffered an upper-body injury with 6:19 minutes left in the middle frame and did not return.
Still, in large thanks to Konecny, as well as Samuel Ersson, the Flyers (23-25-10) found a way to halt their four-game losing streak. They had lost the first two games of this four-game road trip by a combined score of 12-4.
On Monday, Tortorella decided to make Travis Sanheim a healthy scratch and benched Joel Farabee after Calgary’s first goal 8:55 minutes into the second period (more on both players below).
The Flyers went 1-1-0 against the Flames (26-20-11) to split the two-game regular-season series.
• Ersson, making his first start with the big club in over a month, was superb.
He had a dynamite first period to keep Calgary off the board and allow Konecny to hand the Flyers a 1-0 lead.
Coming off a pair of lopsided losses, the Flyers really needed a dominant start like that from Ersson.
The 23-year-old finished with 32 saves. He’s now 6-0-0 with a 2.56 goals-against average and .913 save percentage.
Flames netminder Jacob Markstrom stopped 18 of the Flyers’ 22 shots.
• Sanheim sat for the first time this season. Tortorella has been challenging the 26-year-old defenseman to be more aggressive offensively and more consistent defensively.
Benching Sanheim in this spot is a pretty loud and bold message from the head coach. Sanheim played his junior hockey for the WHL’s Calgary Hitmen. Last season, he said he had family at the game when the Flyers visited the Flames in late October.
It wouldn’t be surprising if Sanheim had some family in Calgary on Monday.
Tortorella sometimes wants to light a fire under a player. Perhaps this was his way in trying to do so with Sanheim.
“He has a personality that … he’s such a good guy that you can kind of just lie in the weeds — be the good guy and play,” Tortorella said 10 days ago. “We want you to play.”
• Speaking of messages, Tortorella played Farabee only 3:52 minutes. This came after the young winger saw just 10:21 minutes Saturday in the Flyers’ 6-2 loss to the Canucks.
Farabee has gone 17 consecutive games without a goal. His offseason was thrown off by sudden disc replacement surgery in his cervical region during late June.
In mid-December, Tortorella said he wasn’t going to let Farabee “hide behind his injury.” Farabee didn’t make excuses, either.
• In the second period, the Flyers had two strong penalty kills that quickly led to goals at even strength.
Nicolas Deslauriers gave the Flyers a 2-0 lead. Cam York, called for tripping, jumped out of the penalty box to assist the marker.
Tony DeAngelo made it 3-1 not long after the Flyers killed off a Nick Seeler tripping penalty.
The Flyers’ PK went 4 for 4.
• Konecny (one goal, one assist), DeAngelo (one goal, one assist) and Scott Laughton (two assists) had multi-point games.
Ivan Provorov played through some pain and finished with 27:31 minutes.
• The Flyers are right back at it Tuesday when they wrap up their road trip against the Oilers (9 p.m. ET/NBCSP).
Tortorella’s club is 2-8-0 in the second game of back-to-back sets.
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