Philadelphia Flyers take over first place with a win over the Montreal Canadiens
The Philadelphia Flyers and the Montreal Canadiens met on Monday 22 November in Philadelphia in a battle of the second and third place teams in the Eastern Conference. When the game ended
the Flyers had overcome a 2-0 deficit and were victorious by a score of 3-2. The victory put the Flyers in first place in the National Hockey League.
This was the second meeting of the season between the two teams. The Canadiens took the first game on 16 November by a score of 3-0, handing the Flyers their first regulation loss in 10
games.
The first period saw Maxim Lapierre score two goals for the Canadiens. His first goal was scored on a wrist shot from just inside the Flyers’ blue line. It appeared that Flyers’ goaltender
Brian Boucher was screened on the play by his own defenceman and the puck went past him low on his glove side. Lapierre added his second goal of the period when he put a wrist shot into the back of the Philadelphia net.
The Canadiens were able to keep their one goal advantage well until the second period, but Ville Leino dashed their shutout hopes at the 14:53 mark. The scoring play began to develop
at the Canadiens blue line with Scott Hartnell passing the puck to Danny Briere who then threw a pass to the breaking Leino. Leino then fired a snap shot past Montreal goalie Carey Price for the goal.
The Flyers were able to cut Montreal’s lead to one at the 1:48 mark of the final period. Claude Giroux accepted a pass from Darroll Powe in front of the net and Giroux was able to get
a wrist shot by Price to even the score at two.
James van Riemsdyk picked the right time to score his first goal of the NHL season 7:42 into the third period. The play developed down low in the Canadiens zone with Flyers’ captain Mike
Richards feeding a pass to Braydon Coburn who found a wide open van Riemsdyk in front of the net. Van Riemsdyk accepted the pass and waited for Price to commit and when he did he fired a snap shot past him and into the back of the net scoring what would eventually
become the game-winning goal.
After the game van Riemsdyk commented on scoring his first goal of the season, saying, “To score in a game that your team wins means so much more and we really wanted to focus on making
sure we came out better after that first period. It drives you crazy. You can ask my parents and brother and they'd probably say I wasn't fun to be around recently. So it feels good to get that one."
The win gave the Flyers 30 points in the standings, which tied them with the Washington Capitals, who lost to the New Jersey Devils on Monday night. Both teams have 14 wins and the season
series between the Flyers and the Capitals is tied at one game apiece. The Flyers took over place in the NHL on the third tiebreaker criteria, goal differential; Philadelphia has scored 23 more goals than they have allowed while Washington’s differential stands
at 10.
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