In front of a national audience on NBC, the Flyers scored a convincing win over the Chicago Blackhawks in a rematch of last year’s Stanley Cup finals. Jeff Carter scored twice while All Star Claude Giroux added four assists as the Flyers outworked and out-skated the Blackhawks 4-1.
Rookie goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky was solid in net stopping 30 of 31 shots, with the lone goal coming on a Marian Hossa penalty shot. Nikolay Zherdev and Scott Hartnell also scored for the Flyers, who are now five points clear of the Penguins atop the Eastern Conference. Philly has an NHL best 69 points.
The game was scoreless after one period, but the Flyers took a lead they would not relinquish just 49 seconds into the second period on a bizarre goal from Jeff Carter. The puck seemed to in front of the Chicago net for what seemed like an eternity as players just stood around hacking at it. So often you’ll see the whistle blown in that situation, but the refs had a good vantage point and it was clear that Hawks goalie Corey Crawford never secured the puck. Crawford just oddly continued to lay on his belly near the side of the net as the Flyers hacked away and eventually knocked the puck in. Claude Giroux was initially given the goal, but it was changed later to Carter with Giroux getting the helper.
Giroux and Carter would hook up again later on a beautiful goal that Giroux saucered right across the goal mouth for Carter to bat in out of mid-air. The other highlight of the night had to Dan Carcillo’s beat down of Chicago center Jake Dowell. Dowell appeared to get an early shot in that actually bloodied Carcillo, but from the midpoint of the fight on, the Flyers agitator just hammered on Dowell in what was a convincing win. We’ll be sure to put some video up of that when it hits youtube.
Next up for the Flyers is Montreal at the Wells Fargo Center on Tuesday.