Samuel Ersson and Jamie Drysdale Return, but Flyers Fall to Utah

The Flyers have officially played their first-ever game against the Utah Hockey Club, and unfortunately, they lost.

Samuel Ersson made his return to the active roster in tonight’s game and started off the game very strong. In a scoreless first period, Ersson went 12 for 12 in save opportunities, including killing off two penalties.

Neither team would be able to score until nearly halfway through the second period when both teams would find the back of the net within 39 seconds of each other. First, Utah would capitalize on a line change, where an out-of-place Rasmus Ristolainen would accidentally kick the puck in the net after an Ersson deflection of a Michael Carcone shot. Joel Farabee would respond almost immediately with his first goal since November 9th.

Utah would respond almost immediately by spending a long time in the Flyers’ zone, wearing out the defense until Juuso Valimaki redirected a shot under the legs of Ersson for his first of the season.

Clearly, the goals were flowing in the second period, because Owen Tippett scored and tied the game at 2-2 with his fourth goal in four games, with Matvei Michkov once again collecting an assist. This extended Michkov’s point streak to four games, which is the longest in the young player’s career.

Keeping the offensive explosion in the second going, Logan Cooley‘s power-play goal put Utah back on top 3-2, where the score would say for the remainder of the period. Penalties again prove themselves to be an issue for the Flyers, but this one was more forgivable than previous ones as it was a questionable delay of game penalty on Tyson Foerster. Regardless of what the call was, the penalties are piling up and the usually very sound Flyers penalty kill is suffering as a result.

The third period started out with what looked like a game-tying goal from Jamie Drysdale, who was also making his return from the injured list. However, after a Utah challenge, the goal was overturned due to goalie interference on Travis Konecny. Besides the overturned goal Drysdale looked good in his first game back since November 9th, the same game the Flyers lost Ersson. He spent 18:54 minutes on the ice and blocked two shots.

As the game entered the final five minutes the Flyers had a chance to tie up the game on a power play, but with thirty seconds left Morgan Frost over-skated the puck that was left in Philly’s zone for him. This gave Kevin Stenlund what I would imagine was the easiest short-handed goal of his life as he was left all alone with only Ersson to beat. This would put the score at 4-2, where it would stay until the final buzzer.

This was a tough loss to stomach for Flyers fans and was a bit of a spoiler for the returns of Ersson and Drysdale. Even with the loss, however, fans need to get excited about the fact that this team is finally healthy again so now we can see what they’re really made of. The Flyers were 6-3-2 without these two, here’s hoping they’ll be even better.

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Bo Lynett

Bo has been a fan of Philly sports his whole life and has spent the entirety of his four years at Colgate University working to start a career in sports media. Double majoring in Economics and Film & Media Studies gave him the opportunity to study both the financial/ analytical and broadcasting/ production sides of the sports world. Outside of the classroom, he’s worked as a director and producer for Colgate’s athletic events streamed on ESPN+ and a writer for the Colgate Athletic Website. Through all of this, however, it was his love of Philly sports that drove him to this career.