The Flyers picked up a huge win on the road last night in Vegas, taking down the best in the Pacific Golden Knights to snap their losing streak at six games and jolt themselves back to life. And while there were certainly a number of elements which were working well for the Flyers on the way to that win — the penalty kill righted the ship in a big way, and Travis Konecny’s effort was quite singular — none was more meaningful than the bounce back performance goaltender Sam Ersson was able to step up with.
A tough task
Ersson came up huge in securing this win for the Flyers, and while the skaters in front of him did offer more support in some ways, in others they quite actively made that task more difficult for him. The Flyers didn’t give up an overly high volume of chances in this one — 58 shot attempts but only 25 of which made it on net — but with over three expected goals accumulated and seven power play opportunities doled out to do it, and holding on to control of this game quickly became an uphill battle.
But for Ersson’s part, he was able to keep things nicely settled down in the face of all of that. He was tracking the shots coming at him well, picking up even the more challenging ones through traffic, and bringing an effective quickness in his motions to get himself across laterally and square to shots. The one shot he did let by him was a tough one — a weird deflection that he didn’t stand much of a chance on — but his response to that was exactly what the team needed, as he didn’t let any frustration creep in, no spiraling from that, and he remained perfect for the rest of the game, keeping things in control until the skaters could find their next opportunity to break the game open again.
And on the flip side, to the credit of the penalty killers, they came up with some really excellent work to block some shots and get sticks in lanes to slow down the cross-ice passes to give Ersson more time to read and get himself across in his crease, and that was a big difference-maker as well. There have certainly been times throughout this particularly challenging stretch when the defenders did not seem to be on the same page as Ersson, but last night’s showing certainly had the look of them all pulling in the same direction again.
Breaking the streak
This win was certainly a meaningful one for the team on a collective level — their losing streak was ended and they were able to avoid the worst-case scenario of extending it to nine games by the end of this very challenging road trip, which the greatest pessimists would have been worried about — but this performance, too, was exactly what Ersson needed to right the ship for himself as well.
Heading into last night’s start, Ersson was sitting on five appearances in a row without a win, and an average save percentage of .784 over that span, along with the appearance of his game looking just a shell of its former self. And with Dan Vladar’s return to play closing in but still not having arrived just yet, and Aleksei Kolosov’s struggles spiraling on them since his recall, Ersson has been the only option for the Flyers, and they’ve never needed him to find his form again more desperately than they did as they headed out on this trip.
With last night’s win, and the .960 save percentage that came along with it, Ersson hit a season-high in single-game save percentage for this year, and added just his fifth appearance in which he broke the .900 mark. It marked a massive high point for his season, to date, and what’s more, there was an even more notable level of confidence demonstrated in his game than we’ve seen from Ersson in recent memory.
“It’s tough, it’s a tough road, right?” head coach Rick Tocchet told media in Vegas after the game. “But I will say, even the tough stretch he’s had, he’s not feeling sorry for himself. He’s facing himself, like in the sense that he’s, in practice, he knows what he’s got to do. That’s all you can ask from a guy. Roll up the sleeves, [if] things don’t go your way, don’t come in the next day [and] pout or whatever, or feel sorry… no one’s gonna feel sorry for… he doesn’t have that attitude. It’s almost like he’s got that closer mentality, you know, of I’ve given up a bunch of home runs but I want the ball again, and he took the ball and closed the game for us.”
Ersson all but certainly isn’t out of the woods yet, but this win will all but certainly be a confidence boost that could go a long way in helping him to spark some positive momentum. Sustaining it will be another challenge entirely, but the weight lifting off the shoulders will hopefully go a long way here.
All stats via Natural Stat Trick.
