Joel Farabee’s Big Night Leads Flyers to OT Win Over Red Wings – The Hockey Writers NHL News Latest News, Analysis & More

It might be a while before a game featuring two Eastern Conference teams is completely meaningless in the playoff picture. Entering play on Tuesday night, five points separated seventh place in the conference from 13th, with 14th and 15th place just two and three points back of that pile, respectively.

The Detroit Red Wings entered the Wells Fargo Center as that 14th-place team, hoping to quell the first downward turn of the Todd McLellan era after losing three of their previous four games. But their opponent Tuesday, the Philadelphia Flyers, are playing just as well as Detroit was when getting the traditional “new coach bump” in McLellan’s early days. A tight-checking, fast-moving game ensued. Both teams picked up an extra point, but the Flyers came away with the extra point on a chaotic game-winner in the final minute of overtime to win 2-1.

Game Recap

The first period moved by in the blink of an eye, with the second TV timeout coming over 18 minutes in and the third never arriving. Detroit had a few dangerous-looking rushes, but the Flyers defense prevented most of them from turning into shots. The Flyers did most of their damage on the cycle and largely controlled play, but a golden opportunity for Matvei Michkov to start the scoring slipped off his stick in the slot late in the frame.

The second period also got off to a choppy start, although Detroit started to spend more time in the offensive zone. Before they could get comfortable, the Flyers lifted the seal on a broken play goal scored in front. Still, it was a big goal for Joel Farabee, who hadn’t scored since Dec. 29. Since a three-game healthy scratching from Jan. 11-14, he has an 81.83% expected goal share and picked up his third point in as many games with that tally.

Detroit did play a better period in the second but was again fortunate to avoid late-period damage, as Travis Konecny missed the net on a backdoor feed from Morgan Frost in the closing minutes. Detroit didn’t waste time to take advantage, with Ben Chiarot burying a bar-down wrister 30 seconds into the third period.

That didn’t open the floodgates, though, as the tight-checking nature persisted throughout the final 20 minutes of regulation. There were some chances — in about 60 seconds Konecny hit the crossbar, Travis Sanheim saved Patrick Kane from capitalizing on a Sam Ersson puck-playing gaff with a clutch stick check, and the Flyers got a few pucks loose in the Detroit crease. The Red Wings made Ersson scramble in the closing seconds of regulation, but he kept that at bay to send the game to 3-on-3.

Overtime mirrored regulation — not much activity for the most part until things picked up at the end. This time, though, the game-winning goal was ready to come. Good defensive work down low by Rasmus Ristolainen sprung Farabee on a high-speed rush. His cross-ice pass hit a high-flying Owen Tippett who tried to use Alex Lyon’s momentum against him with a devastating forehand-backhand move. The deke worked… well enough, as Tippett slid the puck to the edge of the goal line but not quite across. Farabee and Ristolainen ensured the puck wouldn’t stay out, with the latter credited for his first overtime goal as a Flyer.

With Ersson stabilizing the team’s goaltending, the Flyers are hanging around the East playoff bubble and maybe then some. They’re 5-0-1 in their last six games and have largely continued their strong play-driving tendencies. Both teams have more games with similar stakes coming up — the Flyers have five straight games against Metropolitan Division foes, three of which are against teams in the middle of the conference.

Detroit’s next two are against the red-hot Montreal Canadiens and the Tampa Bay Lightning, who beat Detroit last week. Montreal defeated the Lightning on Tuesday to improve to 7-2-1 in their previous 10 games.