FIRST PERIOD
Despite Connor McDavid closing out the scoring in the opening 20 minutes by extending his point streak to 15, the Oilers found themselves in an early three-goal hole against the Flyers, leaving them plenty of work to do entering the intermission.
Vasily Podkolzin had the first big chance just over four minutes into the period when he was found coming through the neutral zone at full flight by a terrific cross-ice pass from Leon Draisaitl, who collected himself from being tripped on the breakout to give his Russian linemate a dangerous shooting opportunity that Dan Vladar shut down.
After the Oilers owned the better start, the Flyers would go on to score three goals over a 7:22 span in the middle stages of the second period, starting with rookie Denver Barkey’s first NHL goal that came past the seven-minute mark by quickly snapping it past Calvin Pickard off the rush with Sean Couturier.
Over two minutes later, defenceman Travis Sanheim scored unassisted to make it 2-0 on a play that resulted from Podkolzin trying to control the puck along the boards with his skate, but instead kicked it into the middle for Couturier. The Flyers captain took a shot on goal that Pickard stopped before Owen Tippett’s follow-up was cleared by Nurse straight to Sanheim, who ripped it up high and short side past Edmonton’s netminder to double Philadelphia’s lead.
Just 4:07 after that, the Flyers got a bounce on their third goal when Bobby Brink picked off Evan Bouchard’s pass up the middle before he had Cam York’s shot from the slot off the ensuing rush go in off his skate inside the crease, increasing the advantage to 3-0 for the visitors with 5:22 left in the opening frame.
Darnell Nurse and Garnet Hathaway dropped the gloves in a heavyweight scap just over a minute later, and the Oilers were able to cut into the lead before the intermission by taking advantage of a Sanheim giveaway to give Connor McDavid a breakaway with the chance to extend his point streak to 15 games.
Sanheim gave the puck away to Ekholm coming over the blueline, and McDavid was open at centre ice to take a quick pass from his Swedish teammate and come in all alone on a breakaway that snapped past Vladar’s blocker to make it 3-1 with his 25th goal of the season.
McDavid extended his league-leading point streak to 15 games, which marked the sixth time he’s reached a 15-game point streak in his career and the third-most in NHL history behind only Wayne Gretzky (19) and Mario Lemieux (7), passing Peter Stastny (5) in the process of pulling the Oilers within two.