Crazy comeback bid thwarted in season-opening shootout loss
Crazy comeback bid thwarted in shootout as Flyers drop season opener to Canucks originally appeared on NBC Sports Philadelphia
The Flyers welcomed back their fans in full throttle Friday night. They gave them a good show in the first period and a wild one in the waning moments of the third.
But a nightmarish second period ultimately soured the season-opening festivities in Philadelphia.
And much of it was caused by the Flyers’ own doing. Despite a furious comeback bid, the club dropped its 2021-22 regular-season opener, 5-4, to the Canucks in a shootout.
Elias Pettersson and J.T. Miller quashed the Flyers’ rally for good with markers in the skills competition. Sean Couturier and Claude Giroux were denied on the Flyers’ two attempts.
Travis Konecny (power play) and Giroux (6-on-5) erased a 4-2 deficit with under three minutes left in regulation to force overtime, sending the listed attendance of 19,338 into a frenzy.
But the Canucks controlled overtime and escaped in the shootout.
“We don’t want to do this all season long, we’d rather play with a lead,” Giroux said. “The fans were pretty wild at the end. That was one of the most exciting goals I’ve scored, just seeing the guys pretty jacked up and the fans were happy. When you lose in shootouts, it’s no fun, but to be able to come back like that and get one point, it’s huge.”
Prior to the defeat, the Flyers had won five straight season openers. Friday night marked their first opener at the Wells Fargo Center with fans in the building since 2013-14. It was the club’s first game in front of a full-capacity crowd since March 2020, when the coronavirus pandemic put the sports world on pause.
Vancouver, which lost in a shootout Wednesday night in Edmonton, jumped on the Flyers’ mistakes and hurt Alain Vigneault’s club with its speed in space.
• The Flyers fed off the energy of the crowd and held a 1-0 edge at first intermission. The lead was quickly erased and forgotten by the end of the second…
Source : yahoo
