The surging Philadelphia Flyers will look to extend their point streak to 10 consecutive games when they host the Nashville Predators on Thursday. The Flyers improved to 7-0-2 in their last nine games following a stirring 3-2 overtime victory over the New Jersey Devils on Tuesday. Owen Tippett stole the puck and beat Vitek Vanecek to the glove side at 3:25 of overtime.
Ryan Poehling scored two goals and backup goaltender Sam Ersson stopped 24 shots as the Flyers picked up their 18th victory of the season. “We’re not the most skilled and we’re not the prettiest team, but we compete hard, and we believe in one another,” Poehling said. “I think that’s the biggest thing.”
While Carter Hart has been sidelined with an undisclosed illness, Ersson has stepped up in a big way. He’s 7-0-1 in his last eight starts and will be tough to take out of the lineup when Hart is available to play. “I’ve been feeling more confident, and I’ve been getting into a little bit of a flow here,” Ersson said. “It’s been a lot of fun, but it’s very important to stay in the moment, be present. I know how I started the year (1-3-1 in first five games), so I know how it feels when things are not going great.” Ersson stopped all 10 shots in the third period and three more in overtime.
“He’s a real confident kid,” Flyers head coach John Tortorella said of Ersson. “The thing that’s impressed me about him is when he was struggling early on, he owned it. He talked about how disappointed he was but said ‘I’m going to play better’ and has. Each start that he gets, he looks bigger to me.
” The Predators posted a 3-2 overtime victory over the Flyers on Dec. 12 as part of their four-game winning streak. That run ended when they dropped a 5-2 decision to the Vancouver Canucks on Tuesday. Goaltender Kevin Lankinen replaced starter Juuse Saros in the third period after the latter allowed five goals on 24 shots. The Predators’ defense struggled for large stretches in front of the goaltenders. “I didn’t like our focus,” Nashville head coach Andrew Brunette said. “That’s something we talked about, especially this time of year with everything that’s going on. I didn’t think mentally we were sharp, and we didn’t have the energy either.
I think you rinse it, but I think there has to be some lessons learned there a little bit.” Despite the loss, the Predators have been excelling quicker than expected. “It’s easy to sleep on us,” forward Tommy Novak said. “You come and look at the roster and it’s not a lot of experience up front, for sure. So I think teams definitely can take you lightly.
That might change soon.” Brunette doesn’t believe his team is being overlooked — quite the opposite, in fact. “I’ve liked my group the whole year,” he said. Predators forward Kiefer Sherwood has been out for the past three games due to an upper-body injury. Although he participated in the morning skate Tuesday, Sherwood sat out versus the Canucks. Sherwood’s status is unclear for this game against the Flyers.
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