Another scoreless frame means bonus hockey. Despite the best efforts of James van Riemsdyk, the score remains tied. van Riemsdyk now leads all forwards with over 22 minutes of ice time and has recorded 7 shots.
Perhaps most impressive, van Riemsdyk has dominated this game despite spending over half of his ice time against the Bruins’ top line of Krejci, Horton, and Lucic. With how strong he has played this game, he could easily have four or five goals already. He truly has been that impressive.
Through 60 minutes though, the second star is probably Tim Thomas. He has stopped 42 out of 44 shots, including 22 in the third period alone. His save on Nikolay Zherdev may have been his nicest, or maybe it was his stop on a Danny Briere breakway. Or maybe even his stop on James van Riemsdyk’s breakway. Really, it could be any of those.
Obviously, the Flyers want to score a goal as soon as possible in overtime, but they have another reason for why they do: their top-four defensemen have all played over 23 minutes. Andrej Meszaros leads them all with 26:56, which isn’t too bad. The Flyers will have to watch for fatigue on their blueline, especially with the far change in overtime. They don’t want to get stuck like Washington did last night, making a slow change that results in an odd-man rush the other way.
Overtime playoff hockey. It doesn’t get much better than this. Grab some coffee and hope you don’t need it.