The Flyers will have revenge on their mind Saturday when they host former Philadelphia captain Claude Giroux and the Ottawa Senators.
The Flyers have lost only three times in their last 10 games, but one of those defeats came in Ottawa on Oct. 23 in a 2-1 setback. Giroux, who spent 2007-22 with Philadelphia, had an assist on Michael Amadio’s tying goal.
Olle Lycksell, another former Flyer, scored the game-winner for the Senators, who are aiming to win their season series with Philadelphia for the fifth straight season.
The Flyers’ improved play has included wins in back-to-back road games this week. First, the team slipped past the Montreal Canadiens 5-4 in a shootout, then they smothered the Nashville Predators 3-1.
“I’m really glad that we came away with four points out of four,” Flyers goaltender Dan Vladar said.
Noah Cates, Matvei Michkov and Travis Konecny scored in the win over Nashville, while Cam York registered a pair of assists. Philadelphia coach Rick Tocchet was particularly glad to see Michkov find the back of the net, as he had not scored since Oct. 16 and has only two goals.
“He’s been squeezing it a bit, but his game has been coming,” Tocchet said. “It’s nice to see him score.”
Still, the first-year coach would like to see more consistency in his team — a 60-minute effort.
“I just didn’t like our start,” Tocchet said. “… But then we started to come. We got better, which is the key. Sometimes you don’t rebound from that tough start we had.”
Last month’s win over the Flyers ignited a three-game winning streak for the Senators, although they have followed that stretch with three defeats in their last four games. Their current three-game road trip, which ends Saturday, has featured overtime losses to the Canadiens and Boston Bruins.
Giroux had a goal and an assist Thursday against Boston, while Amadio also scored for the Senators. Linus Ullmark made 22 saves before allowing the winning goal with 5.6 seconds left in overtime.
“We didn’t have a lot of good players tonight, to be honest,” Ottawa coach Travis Green said. “I thought we hung in there. I thought we defended fairly well, but we spent a lot of time in our zone the first two periods because we weren’t playing well enough. We got beat to a lot of loose pucks.
“… I’m happy we found a way to get a point against a team that’s going well and playing good at home. I like that we came out in the third period and got back to our game. It was a good point on the road for how we played.”
The Senators are allowing 3.86 goals per game — only the St. Louis Blues are worse — and their penalty kill percentage (65.1%) ranks last in the league.
“They wanted it more than we did, it’s as simple as that,” Ottawa defenseman Thomas Chabot said. “We did a good job coming back in the third, but at the end of the day, we need to be better as a team.”
–Field Level Media
