The Canucks' penalty problem showed up next. They came in taking 4.3 penalties a game over their last 10, and early in the 2nd Philadelphia made one count. Matvei Michkov set up Travis Konecny for a power-play goal at 3:05 to make it 2-0. That's how Michkov's night went. He didn't score, but the Flyers' top finisher ran the play that gave them a 2-goal cushion.
From there it was a question of whether Philadelphia would collapse late again. Before this game the Flyers had lost to the Rangers and then let Calgary come back 3 times, and a 2-0 lead heading into the 3rd period is exactly the spot where that kept happening. Vancouver had no Thatcher Demko, no Filip Chytil and no Tom Willander, and it still had to find 2 goals against a team running on fumes.
Vancouver got one. Jonathan Lekkerimaki scored on the power play in the 3rd, the Canucks' only goal of the night, and for a few minutes it looked like the Flyers might give one back again. They didn't. Philadelphia scored in all 3 periods and added a 3rd goal in the final frame, which ended any chance of another late collapse. The box score search didn't turn up anything on Liam Ohgren or Brock Boeser, the 2 Canucks the preview flagged as the bright spots. On a night when Vancouver's only goal came from Lekkerimaki, it's safe to say neither of them broke through.
For Vancouver the losing streak goes on, and the home record keeps getting worse. This defense had been allowing 4.3 goals a game over its last 10, so holding Philadelphia to 3 counts as progress. The problem is the offense, which did nothing until the 3rd period. With Demko not expected back until around Christmas and the injury list still long, this is a 3-16-1 team without many answers.
Philadelphia snapped a 3-game skid and improved to 5-10-5. The win on the 2nd night of a back-to-back was more convincing than the score suggests. The Flyers jumped on Vancouver early, made them pay for a penalty, and closed a game in the 3rd period for the first time in a while. That was the one thing they hadn't been able to do.
