The Flyers tend to raise the blood pressure in the Delaware Valley when they play against the Islanders.
They did it again on Sunday night, but their fans will all smile as they shovel snow to start next week.
The Flyers took another back-and-forth, heartbreaking OT victory over the Islanders with a 4-3 decision to beat the big two-game rematch over the weekend. Including last season’s playoffs, when New York eliminated Alain Vigneault’s club in a second round of Game 7, the Flyers’ five past wins against the Islanders have all come in extra innings. The Flyers won 3-2 against New York in OT on Saturday.
The Islanders won nine of the 12 matchups with the Flyers last season, including the postseason, regular season, and preseason. The Flyers are 2 for 2 so far in 2020-21, even if it wasn’t pretty. It’s never really against Barry Trotz’s team.
Kevin Hayes scored the overtime winner and 20-year-old Joel Farabee scored his first NHL hat-trick of his career.
The Flyers (7-2-1) have won four consecutive games.
The Islanders (3-4-2) have lost five games in a row.
• The Flyers don’t like the way they play and that’s a good thing as they have still found a way to get their best 10-game start of a season (15 points) since the club from 2002-03, that was 7-1-2 with 16 points after 10 games.
From players to fans, no one seems overly excited with the 7-2-1 start. Imagine being critical of a 7-2-1 start in the past?
Real combat teams win when they are not at their best. And the Flyers haven’t had this kind of start since Keith Primeau’s days as captain.
The Flyers have been notoriously off to a good start in the opening month of a season for a while. This team will be the first to tell you that it hasn’t played a full game yet. Despite this, the Flyers have not been slow in the win-loss column. This was their best opening month of a season since that same team of 2002-03.
Here’s a look at the records set in the opening month of each season between that time:
• Farabee can score in a variety of ways, but he was known for his cutting-edge shot from the 2018 draft. In July 2018, former general manager Ron Hextall praised the cheating on Farabee’s shot.
The second-year winger showed it off on his first two goals, then scored a big one to complete his hat-trick.
As a rookie, Farabee had eight goals in 52 regular season games last year. He has already scored five goals this season.
There have been seven hat-tricks in the NHL this season, and the Flyers have two: Farabee and Travis Konecny.
• The Islanders’ third goal was bad for the Flyers.
Justin Braun couldn’t keep the puck in the attacking zone and then lost a run in the retreat, but Jakub Voracek, Claude Giroux and Robert Hagg were late for their backchecks. Anders Lee and Mathew Barzal made them pay when New York erased a 3-1 deficit in the third period in less than six minutes.
The Flyers have had all sorts of problems ending games against the Islanders for the past two seasons. They blew a 3-0 lead in the third period against New York at the Wells Fargo Center last season on their way to a shootout loss.
Again, the Flyers have yet to put together a complete game. The Flyers won’t be perfect, but they can be much cleaner and consistent for 60 minutes.
• James van Riemsdyk looks like his vintage, distinctive self, a huge early storyline for the Flyers.
He delivered four assists on Sunday, good for 13 points in 10 games. It equates to the best 10-game start of his career, going back to his rookie season in 2009-10, when he had 13 points for the Flyers as a 20-year-old.
Since returning to Philly in July 2018, the Flyers are 45-13-5 when he scores at least one point.
• Both clubs went with their back-goalies in the second game of the back-to-back set.
Brian Elliott is 3-0-0 in three starts this season with 96 saves from 102 shots. He is one of the most reliable backups in the NHL.
With a 3-3 tie, New York goalkeeper Ilya Sorokin made an excellent save on Giroux with less than three minutes to go. He finished with 25 stops.
• Konecny came back from his one game benching and played with good energy. He went scoreless and the Flyers still scored four goals.
Philippe Myers has been very effective in his two games back from a broken rib injury.
After playing 11:17 minutes on Saturday, Myers took an assist and a plus-3 rating in 11:11 minutes on Sunday.
• The Flyers used a different combination of six defenders for a fifth game in a row when Hagg entered the line-up for Erik Gustafsson. Vigneault said the move was not specifically related to the performance of Gustafsson, an offensive-minded man who played in the past two wins.
“Not that I have the feeling that Erik wasn’t playing a good game, but I wanted to get Haggs back in,” said Vigneault before the game. “He gives us a great physical defender there.”
Hagg, who was a healthy scratch for the previous two games, only played 13:42.
• The referees had an interesting game. They called out 10 penalties and some were tantalizing for both sides.
They also missed a blatant cross-check from Casey Cizikas on Oskar Lindblom in the third period.
• The Flyers get a payback when they host the Bruins on Wednesdays (8:00 PM ET / NBCSN) and Friday (7:00 PM ET / NBCSP).
The Bruins swept a set of two games off the Flyers in Boston when they scored 10 goals, seven of which came during the third period.
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