NEWARK, N.J. – It figured to be a tighter defensive effort but anyone who watched that 7-0 pasting of the Flyers by Pittsburgh on Wednesday wouldn’t have guessed Philadelphia could turn things around so quickly.
On Thursday night, the Flyers held the Devils scoreless for nearly 38 minutes, thanks in part to some more responsible play on the defensive side of the puck.
Goaltender Joseph Woll was also a steady presence in net.
But it ended up being a 3-2 Devils overtime win at Prudential Center. At least the Flyers earned a point.
Coach Rick Tocchet and several players agreed the Flyers played a much more coordinated game, although New Jersey’s shot total (44) was rather high.
Woll was under siege most of the evening but came out pretty much unscathed.
“Not every game is going to be a perfect game,” Woll said. “I thought we did a good job at being opportunistic. Had a chance to win it. Just disappointed we didn’t finish the job.”
Defenseman Travis Sanheim scored at 5:33 of the third period to break a 1-1 tie. But the Devils tied it on a goal by defenseman Luke Hughes at the 9:44 mark. Finally, in overtime, the Devils scored at 3:23 for the win
“I think we did a great job throughout the game of keeping them to the outside,” Woll said. “Given they are a puck-heavy team, being smart about the chances we allowed. I liked our battle, our compete throughout to the end.”
Tocchet sounded relieved that his team was able to bounce back after the disaster from the previous night.
“Obviously Woll was outstanding, he was terrific,” the coach said. “We have to buckle down. The problem is we don’t have much practice time. So we’re going to have to do it on the fly here.”
Sanheim said the Flyers battled harder than they did vs. Pittsburgh.
Tocchet agreed.
“I think the way ‘Woller’ played gave us some juice,” the coach said. “We chipped away, got the point but we’ve got a lot of work to do. We have to up our skill level, make some plays.”
As an alternate captain, Sanheim has a strong voice in the team’s fortunes.
“If it hadn’t been for ‘Woller’ there, it would have been a lot worse,” he said. As for the team being out of sync, he had no definitive answer. “If it keeps happening, then we’ve got bigger issues. We need to clean it up. We need to get back to playing the way we know we can.”
Christian Dvorak gives the impression there’s time to correct some of this stuff.
“We just have to execute better and play simple hockey,” he said. “We just have to be better. We have to play our brand of hockey.”
The Flyers’ first goal of the game and the season came about in rather unusual fashion.
Defenseman Rasmus Ristolainen stationed himself in front of goaltender Jake Allen and was in position to deflect defense partner Sanheim’s point shot into the net at 11:12 of the first period.
The Devils outshot the Flyers by a 14-7 margin in the first period but Woll was able to turn aside all the Jersey attempts.
Several penalties kept the Flyers’ kill units busy but they were pretty much flawless and Woll did the rest.
The Flyers held on to that slim lead until there were just 2:02 left in the second. Dougie Hamilton took advantage of a Philadelphia turnover by Cam York and sent a shot past Woll.
New Jersey held a 30-14 edge in shots after two periods.
>Lines shuffled
The Flyers’ top three lines didn’t do a whole lot in Wednesday night’s 7-0 loss to Pittsburgh, so coach Rick Tocchet shuffled some personnel.
The lines vs. Pittsburgh were: Trevor Zegras centering Owen Tippett and Porter Martone; Dvorak centering Tyson Foerster and Travis Konecny; Noah Cates centering Alex Bump and Matvei Michkov.
For the game against New Jersey, the new lines were: Dvorak centering Konecny and Martone; Zegras centering Bump and Tippett; Cates centering Foerster and Michkov.
>Short shots
The Flyers return to action Saturday when they play host to the Carolina Hurricanes. . .Thursday’s scratches were the same as Wednesday’s: Garrett Wilson, David Jiricek and Nikita Grebenkin. Denver Barkey remains sidelined by injury.
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