Travis Konecny scored the only goal of the shootout to give the Philadelphia Flyers a 6-5 win over the Boston Bruins last night at Wells Fargo Center. The two point gain allowed the Flyers to jump the Florida Panthers and move into the second wild card position in the Eastern Conference. The Cats now trail the Flyers by a single point with a game in hand.
Unlike the Bruins, the Washington Capitals did what a division-leader should and handed the Carolina Hurricanes a 2-0 defeat. Carolina’s loss kept the Panthers three points behind the Hurricanes and now they have a game in hand on that bunch of jerks.
Florida remains a point behind the Toronto Maple Leafs for third place in the Atlantic Division. The Maple Leafs will host the New Jersey Devils tonight. The Devils upset the Tampa Bay Lightning this weekend, hopefully they can surprise the Buds, too.
The Flyers will play one more time, On Wednesday night in St. Louis, before the Panthers take on the Los Angeles Kings on Thursday.
Florida will hold an 11 a.m. practice this morning at IceDen in Coral Springs.
AHL
The Springfield Thunderbirds were swept by the Providence Bruins in a key home and home this weekend, dropping Florida’s AHL affiliate to fourth place in the Atlantic Division.
On Saturday, the P-Bruins ended Springfield’s five-game winning streak by opening up a three-goal lead after forty minutes en route to a rather easy 5-2 victory at MassMutual Center. Aleksi Saarela and Ryan Haggerty scored third period power-play goals for the T-Birds. Dryden Hunt, Tommy Cross, Ethan Prow and Daniel Audette collected assists. Philippe Desrosiers stopped 28 of the 32 shots in he faced.
Sunday’s match in Providence saw more of the same with the Bruins taking a 5-3 decision this time. With Sam Montembeault summoned to Sunrise to back up Chris Driedger, Philippe Derosiers got the start again and stopped 38 shots in defeat. Owen Tippett notched his 15th goal and Ethan Prow and Ryan Haggerty also lit the lamp. Assists went to Tommy Cross, Matt Mangene, Aleksi Saarela, Thomas Schemitsch and Daniel Audette.
While the Thunderbirds are currently holding down a playoff spot, its hold on it is tenuous. Springfield has a two-point lead on Wilkes-Barre/Scranton, but the Penguins have two games in hand.
ECHL
The Greenville Swamp Rabbits dipped below ECHL .500 by going 1-2 over its last three games.
Greenville dropped a 3-1 decision to the Atlanta Gladiators on Thursday. Ryan Bednard stopped 34 of 37 shots in the road loss. Patrick Bajkov scored the only goal for the Swamp Rabbits with Adam Rockwood drawing an assist.
The Swamp Rabbits posted a 6-2 home ice win over the Florida Everblades on Friday. Adam Rockwood produced a goal and an assist, Jake Horton and Dylan MacPherson also scored goals, and Matt Marcinew and Will Lochead collected assists.
Greenville wrapped the weekend with a tough 2-1 loss to the division-leading South Carolina Stingrays. No Panthers or Thunderbirds prospects figured in the scoring and Ryan Bednard was in Providence backing up Philippe Desrosiers.
New league coming
Building on the overtime concept introduced in 2015, 3ICE, a new and totally independent, three-on-three professional ice hockey league in North America is slated to begin play in June, 2021. There will be eight teams consisting of seven players and a goalie, with one coach. The teams will not be affiliated with a city, but rather with different sponsors, taking a page from Formula One racing. Each tour stop will feature a bracket-style tournament format, with games played on a full-sized rink. Each game will have two eight-minute halves and a running clock. The new league has already signed contracts with CBS Sports Network for television coverage in the United States, and TSN and RDS for coverage in Canada.